Reflections In Time
by Kulmanari
Summary: RE-WRITE PENDING. Its been two years since Zack and Cody stood between Earth and the total destruction of the human race. Now a new enemy has appeared who threatens all that the twins have sacrificed to protect.
1. Prologue

_"**Reflections In Time"**_

_**Sequel to "The Chaos Demons"**_

**"Prologue"**

The world was supposed to end over two years ago…

It didn't…

But that wasn't supposed to happen…

It was a mistake…

A deviation from the path of destiny…

The world is on a collision course with oblivion…

It cannot be changed…

Only delayed…

And the inevitable can only be delayed so long…

Time is the enemy…

And time is running out.

* * *

_Dear Journal, _

_The world was supposed to have ended over two years ago on that fateful day in September when Demons crossed over into our world and brought about the annihilation of mankind. But, like I said, it was supposed to happen. It did happen, but it also didn't happen. Confusing huh? Let me explain…_

_My name is Cody Martin and for my entire life I was just a normal person. Well, to be honest I did have some exceptional talents when it came to academics that my twin brother Zack didn't possess, but he had skill in sports that I lacked. We were normal…until the day when I was sixteen years old sitting at home with my mother and an eighteen year old version of myself showed up at our suite in the Tipton hotel to deliver a grave warning to us._

_Future Cody told us a tale where in just a week, my brother Zack would be killed by an invading army of Demons and that I would barely escape with my life. We had been targeted first because we were the biggest threat to them._

_What followed was a tale that would probably put me in the loony bin if I ever told it to anyone that hadn't been there. Future Cody saved us so many times as the day of the end of the world approached. He taught Zack and me how to summon our hidden powers and use them to fight, and when the day came, we were ready._

_As myself, Zack and our friend Max fought back a never ending tide of Demons as they rushed through a gateway into our world, Future Cody battled the mighty Demon Lord nearby. Future Cody was getting pounded hard and was well in over his head, and just when it seemed like he was about to be finished off Zack and I charged the Demon Lord Ashani with everything we had. It wasn't enough to stop him, but it was enough to save Future Cody's life._

_Zack and I went down hard as Ashani turned his fury on us, destroying our immortal souls but not our bodies. I only know what happened next because of what our world's demi-god Lord Guardian told us since Zack and I lie on the ground dead for all intents and purposes, but not completely dead._

_Just as Ashani was about to kill Future Cody, Future Zack arrived with a new body that our Lord Guardian had provided to him since he had lost his in the apocalyptic future we had been told about. Together, the two future twins succeeded in destroying the Demon Lord, but at the cost of their own lives._

_Their immortal souls should have ascended to await rebirth, but instead they were drawn into the bodies of my brother and I and gave us a new lease on life. They saved our world, they saved our family and they gave us another chance at life._

_I will never forget the sacrifice Future Cody and Zack made for all of us. They were true heros. Every day of my life that I live today is thanks to their bravery and selflessness. I only hope that I can live up to their memory as it now falls upon me, and Zack as well, to be the new defenders of our world. We are charged with protecting it from any and all darkness that threatens it._

_- Cody M. ~ May 7th, 2011  
_

* * *

Turn the page and step into the alternate universe of the Light vs the Darkness...if you are as brave as Zack and Cody are that is...


	2. Live Your Life

**Chapter 1**

**"Live Your Life"**

_  
And as we lie beneath the stars  
We realize how small we are  
If they could love like you and me  
Imagine what the world could be  
If everyone cared and nobody cried  
If everyone loved and nobody lied  
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride  
We'd see the day when nobody died_

_"If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback_

Dark smoke appeared suddenly on the blue marble floor, rapidly rising to the average height of a normal person and winding its way forward through the foreign place. When it reached the center of the room where it had appeared it paused for a moment and then someone came out of it. As soon as the young man appeared and started walking forward, the smoke quickly dispersed with the last traces of it desperately clinging to his pitch black armor which covered him from neck to toe.

There were two giant crystalline statues in the shape of rock golems flanking the path forward to where the person he'd come to see sat. They now came alive and blocked the young man's way. He looked up at them, for they towered above him over twice his height, without concern or emotion on his face before returning his gaze to the old man sitting on his throne behind them.

"Move," The young man commanded simply, his tone hinting that he was accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed without question. When the crystal golems didn't budge, he merely sighed and an aura of negative energy surrounded him tinting his black armor in a blood red hue. His short white blonde hair, which had black streaks running through it, reflected the color of his aura making him look like the last person anyone would want to make angry. He took several more steps forward until he stood just an arms length from the golems. They seemed to push closer together, determined to bar his way.

"I said move…" He looked from the golem on the left to the one on the right slowly, the whole motion slow and calculated. They didn't move. It was their final mistake.

In the blink of an eye the young man was airborne, rising several feet until he was even with the left golem's midsection. Just as its crystal head turned slightly to follow the movement and its bulky arm rose to swat the intruder down, the man delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to it which was reinforced by the magic in his armor and the negative energy he channeled through his body. The golem exploded into hundreds of pieces and crystalline dust flew in every direction, most of it swirling around the man's aura as he used his spinning momentum to fire off a lance of negative energy into the right golem shattering it as well.

He landed quickly and gracefully, chunks of crystal clattering to the ground on either side of him.

"Time!" He shouted at the old man who was just now rising from his throne, clearly angered by the intrusion into his home and the destruction being wrought upon it.

"A most unwelcome visit Jarran," The old man said, crossing his arms. The space around him seemed to waver, much like the air rising off of pavement in the summer. Jarran sneered at him, hating the old man's smugness.

"Father Time. You know why I'm here," Jarran spoke, his aura of negative energy sparking and flaring as it touched the shimmering space. Lighting bolts occasionally shot away from the trailing edges of his aura and static electricity raced across his armor.

Father Time was powerful alright, but Jarran now had newly acquired abilities that let him stand so close to the Lord of the Time Realm when he didn't want visitors. Anyone else would find their bodies warped and twisted as they transitioned in several different stages from what they were at that moment to growing younger and older at the same time until it killed them.

"You're a bold one aren't you?" Time asked.

"What is the meaning of this?" Jarran asked a question of his own, seeming to pull a heap of metal from out of nowhere and dropping it onto the marble floor with a loud clunking noise. The dented and charred golden metal looked like a machine of some sort, resembling a robotic octopus. It had clearly seen better days.

"It is a Sentinel. They guard the boundaries of my realm," Time replied, explaining the obvious answer to Jarran as if he were some sort of invalid who had been living under a rock his whole life.

"I see. Then perhaps you would care to explain why I found this one in the Chaos Realm spying on it?"

"I do not know why it was there, if it really was there at all,"

"I'm warning you now Time, stay out of my Realm or there will be trouble."

"Your Realm? Hah! You are nothing more than a Champion of your Realm, much like that idiot Taschen is of the Earth Realm. Your Demon Lord Ashani is dead and you all are nothing without him. Don't come barging in here all high and mighty without the power to back it up young cub," Time finished his rant, the only emotion Jarran showed throughout the whole thing was a twitch in his right eye when he spoke of the Demon Lord's demise.

"Stay out of my Realm Time or else…" Jarran's aura of red light rapidly expanded into a sphere. It tore through the marble floor, pulverized the columns holding up the roof of the chamber which started cracking under the stress. Everything caught inside of the sphere of negative energy was completely obliterated, looking like a nuclear blast had gone off inside of it.

"You are nothing fool." Time spouted, not retreating from the expanding wall of negative energy coming towards him. He eyed it warily, knowing he could stop it before it got to him.

"The joke is on you old man," Jarran laughed before he spun around in place, the dark smoke that had foreshadowed his arrival returned to consume him and return him to the Chaos Realm, his sphere of energy collapsing inward as he transitioned across realms.

* * *

"Help!!!" The little girl screamed again, her small voice nearly lost amid the chaos around her. She couldn't be more than eight or nine years old. A raging inferno was consuming nearby buildings while overhead helicopters buzzed by, nearly drowning out the distant screams, roars and frantic gunshots. It would be a scary sight if it were just an isolated incident, but since it wasn't it was downright terrifying. No one knew it just yet, but the world was ending right before their very eyes.

Cody Martin raced down the street, his eyes drawn to the dirty and bloody screaming girl standing on the sidewalk. The tears in her eyes stained her pretty face as she desperately looked around for the parents that she would never see again. As she caught sight of Cody, she held out her arms towards him and he scooped her up in his arms continuing to flee from the Demons that were in pursuit of him.

"Hi," the little girl said, holding onto Cody tightly and resting her head against his shoulder. He glanced around as he turned a corner, looking for some place safe to go to and saw an unexpected but very welcome sight. There was a barricade formed by the Boston Police just outside the hospital formed by civilian vehicles, squad cars, officers, riot police and SWAT with a police helicopter flying overhead.

"I'm Cody," he told her as he headed towards the flashing red and blue lights. All manner of weapons were pointed at him by the dark shapes of the police taking cover behind the barricade. The weapons were lowered when a bright spot light from one of the squad cars hit him, showing them all that he was just a human and not one of the monsters terrorizing the city.

"I'm Amanda," the little girl sobbed, clutching him tighter. As they were pushed through the barricade by the officers who were shouting directions at him, Cody felt his arms growing tired and set Amanda down for a moment.

Cody was breathing heavily, but he no longer cared about that. For the first time in two days he was able to sit down and rest for a second. He finally felt safe behind the barricades and a hundred or more armed men and women. Amanda sat down next to him and took one of his hands in both of hers.

"Thank you Cody. I was so scared."

"You're safe now, don't be scared," he said, thinking just how silly he sounded. Here he was telling her not to be scared when he himself was terrified of the Demons. He couldn't explain where the urge to protect and reassure her was coming from, but any loving parent knows.

"I won't be while you're here," Amanda whispered. Cody smiled his first smile in days at her display of trust in him. His life had been turned upside down ever since his family was killed and yet he felt content being here and watching over this poor child. It was all about the little things in life.

Everything grew silent and a chill spread through the air. Cody glanced up and out past the barricade. It was pitch black the way he had come, which was odd. The dull orange glow of the streetlights had lit the way just moments ago. He had a bad feeling about this…

Demons burst forth out of the darkness and charged the police line. Some people panicked, some screamed in horror, but the overwhelming majority of the police immediately opened fire. Cody stood up and scooped Amanda into his arms again, backing away as gunfire from pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns and SWAT's assault rifles smashed into the Demon line. This couldn't be happening again, they'd already found him and come for him. Why wouldn't they leave him alone? Why were they so determined to kill him? Were these good people going to get killed because of him?

Dozens of orcs fell to the wall of lead smashing into them and burst into dark smoke as they were fatally hit. There were too many and they were all moving too fast however, and the first bunch of Demons started to rip the barricade apart or simply climb over it. The gunfire started to become erratic as the police line was overrun.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Cody yelled to the innocent people taking refugee nearby. He turned away from the battle and fled. He had to keep Amanda safe and maybe he could draw the Demons away by himself since they seemed so interested in him. Cody ran past the officers running over to the battle from the opposite side of the barricade with weapons already blazing away. He jumped up on top of a squad car's hood and ran across it to the empty street beyond.

Cody ran several blocks away before he stopped, out of breath and exhausted from the run. He turned to look back at the hospital and everyone there only for his eyes to be met by absolute darkness. They were all dead, and the Demons were still coming for him.

"What happened to the nice people?" Amanda asked in a hushed whisper, her small eyes looking back with Cody's at the darkness. Cody turned away and continued walking. He had to get them out of the city, they would be safer the further away they got from Boston. Cody didn't answer her, he didn't want to frighten her any more and saying what he knew to be the truth of the matter would only make it seem more real to him.

He kept moving. He had no other choice. The roars and squeals of the demonic creatures grew louder in his ears, he felt the air grow colder and clawed hands reaching out for him. Grabbing him… Ripping him to shreds… The screaming…It was horrible…

* * *

The old Tipton Hotel in downtown Boston sat in disrepair. Its upper floors were mostly destroyed, the windows had been shattered out of every floor and the lower levels were pockmarked with impact craters and large cracks. It was amazing that the building still stood, but then again it was amazing that all of the other buildings around it with the exception of a couple were still standing as well given that their condition wasn't much different than the Tipton's.

Immediately following the final battle between the Children of Light and the Demon Lord, several government agencies arrived to investigate the strange events that had taken place. They had a lot of evidence to work with such as the feeds from dozens of security cameras before they had been destroyed and the body of one very real dragon lying in the crater where it had fallen. Amazingly however, all the cameras picked up was images of the Demon Lord and the future twins, highly distorted by their light auras rendering them unidentifiable, and so the Zack and Cody of the present went unsuspected of having any involvement in what had happened.

For roughly a block and a half radius around the Tipton the entire place was fenced off, the tops of the tall barrier covered in barbed wire and security cameras. The investigation into what had happened there over two years ago was still ongoing and the government agencies didn't want the scene tampered with.

Zachary Martin, one of the surviving Children of Light who had been present at the final battle, walked up the dark early morning street with his hands shoved in his pockets. He came to a stop just outside of view of the cameras on top of the fence surrounding the Tipton and nearby buildings. His head tilted upwards to take in all of the damage wrought upon the dilapidated building which had been the first stable home in his life where he'd done a lot of growing up with his twin brother and their friends.

He wasn't sure why he'd come here today. Zack had made a point of avoiding coming here in the two plus years since the night his life changed forever. So what had drawn him here? If only he knew the answer…Maybe the answer was inside of the fence.

Making up his mind, Zack pulled his hands out of his pockets and concentrated for a moment with his mind, searching for the light that was always with him hiding just out of reach when he wasn't actively using it. He grabbed hold of it with his mind and pulled some of it inside of him.

Immediately power surged through him and Zack manipulated it as simply as one orders their legs to walk to get him aloft. He soared in a high angle over the fence where the camera's couldn't see him directly above and then landed further inside where he couldn't be seen. The security cameras were meant to watch for people trying to get in, not out, and so he felt relatively safe knowing that his presence here would go undetected.

His eyes were drawn to a spot on the road just past the old Tipton hotel towards the intersection where Paul Revere's mini market once existed, he had worked there with his brother for a time in the summer several years ago, remembering the swirling vortex of darkness which had been spewing all manner of demons into the world. He'd only just learned how to use his powers, though he had been given a great deal of help by the knowledge that his future self's soul had imparted upon him while it had been possessing his body to fight days before the final battle. Cody, Max and himself had held them off here while the Cody Martin from the future battled the mighty Demon Lord himself.

Future Cody had faltered in his attacks and was almost overwhelmed by the Demon Lord. It was then that Zack and his brother abandoned their guard of the vortex to distract Ashani and buy Cody enough time to recover. It had been a bold and dangerous move that did indeed work, but at a terrible cost for Ashani struck the young brothers down in an instant for interfering. Even before their bodies fell to the ground, their souls had been destroyed. The twins were for all intents and purposes dead…except that their bodies clung desperately to life, feeling the presence of the souls of the future Martin twins nearby.

Zack's eyes lingered on the spot where he had lain closer to death than any other person in history ever did, but not yet truly dead, for what seemed like an eternity. When the future twins sacrificed themselves to destroy Ashani, their souls left their mortal bodies which were being totally destroyed and it was then that they should have transitioned to where all souls go to be recycled into new bodies and live life anew. The souls of the Children of Light were eternal, they continued on giving life, great power and destinies to people regardless of when one body died and the next was born. The souls had been drawn into the nearly lifeless twins lying on the street rather than ascending to the afterlife to await rebirth. Zack and Cody awoke none the wiser.

Imagine their surprise when Lord Guardian Taschen explained all of this to them and cautioned them that there might be some side affects involved such as changed personalities, preferences, attitudes and memories of the former soul's body surfacing at random. Zack definitely knew that he had changed after awhile and the only thing that he could attribute it to was just that. At least he didn't have horrible dreams about the nightmarish apocalypse of the future where the Chaos Demons had defeated mankind like Cody had been having recently, although Zack had been feeling like he was living on borrowed time more and more lately, almost coinciding with the time that Cody's dreams started.

He looked around at the destroyed area, reliving the final battle in his mind. It was amazing how far things had come since then. Zack surveyed the stillness, the dust, the lifelessness of it all. He wondered if this was how the alternate future had looked.

Something made him look up at the Tipton, towards the twenty third floor whose outer wall he had personally blasted apart. When he looked up there, he felt like someone was staring back down at him. It made him feel cold inside.

This was all wrong…

He shouldn't have come back here…

Zack took to the skies, glancing at the spot where he was sure someone had been watching him as he climbed above the Tipton only to see nothing was there, and flew off towards home. He shook off the whole experience. He'd just put it out of his mind like it had never happened. He was just being stupid jumping at shadows.

* * *

High above the streets of Boston in the early morning light a dark shape rose higher and higher into the air. It wasn't a plane since it was going straight up and it was too quiet to be a helicopter. Cody Martin rocketed upward, channeling the power of the light inside of him to make flying possible. It was an awesome experience, but he couldn't maintain it for long as it drained a lot of power to maintain. As he hit the wall of ominous grey clouds above him, he powered himself up to his maximum strength.

A cascade of light washed over him from head to toe and his magical armor appeared, covering him from neck to toe in golden armor edged in black. Excalibur, the ancient sword of legend which had many names throughout history, appeared at his side at the same time as the shield strapped to his back did. The golden light of his aura intensified in brightness and size as he broke through the last of the clouds and out into the clear sky. He was like a shining beacon in the darkness of the morning.

The golden rays of the sun hit him as he came to rest, hovering in midair high above the clouds, and seemed to rejuvenate him. He not only felt better physically, but mentally as well as the lingering elements of his dark dream were chased off by the intense light on Earth's sun.

* * *

Zack's strange feeling of being watched wasn't wrong. High above him, standing in the shadows of the destroyed twenty third floor, someone was silently watching his every movement. Jarran's pitch black armor was gone, replaced by casual clothes that human mortals of his own age wore in this Realm. He wasn't truly there, that was impossible for him now that the gateway had been destroyed by the mortals.

His powers in the Earth Realm were almost non-existent thanks to the efforts of the Children of Light to keep their world separate from his own. Only when the Chaos Realm was strong enough could it bleed over into Earth, allowing him to use his powers here and eventually open a gateway to bring over the armies of Demons. Ashani had tried to do just that two years ago and had failed, leaving the mortals safer than they had been in a thousand years.

Jarran shifted his weight and leaned against the wall of a destroyed hallway overlooking the streets below and watched Zack Martin study his surroundings. The strongest of the Children of Light, the bane of Jarran's existence and greatest threat to Chaos's return to power over the Earth. If only he could kill the young man, the balance of power between realms would drastically shift. But how could he accomplish that now?

As Jarran mused over his dilemma, he noticed Zack looking up in his general direction. Could he see him? Could he feel him? Whatever the case may be, he didn't feel comfortable being here any more and with barely a whisper of noise he returned to his own Realm.

* * *

Zack and Cody Martin are back in the much awaited Sequel to The Chaos Demons. Life for them has moved on normally until Cody starts having dreams of the apocalyptic future that his alternate self survived and Zack starts to feel like someone is watching him in both his dreams and waking moments. Both of them begin to feel like they're living on borrowed time...

Meanwhile the government is actively investigating the events of the final battle. Will they get close to unraveling what happened and who was there when it all took place? Will they discover the identity of the twins?

More dangerous yet is the revelation of yet another Realm, the Realm of Time, that doesn't exactly approve of the Earth Realm. Then there's Jarran, the powerful young man from the Chaos Realm who nearly overpowered a Realm Lord on his own and watches Zachary Martin in the Earth Realm contemplating how to go about killing him to shift the balance of power between the light and darkness.

What does it all mean for the twins?

Stay Tuned for **Chapter 2: "Spontaneous Combustion"**


	3. Spontaneous Combustion

**Chapter 2**

**"Spontaneous Combustion"**

A/N: Please review and let me know how you like my new character Jarran

I really enjoy writing his parts, I hope you all like them as well**  
**

_  
Everyone is changing  
There's no one left that's real  
So make up your own ending  
And let me know just how you feel  
'Cause I am lost without you  
I cannot live at all  
My whole world surrounds you  
I stumble then I crawl_

_"Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd_

"And this is the best you could come up with?" Jarran whispered in a deadly tone. He was annoyed, but he didn't shout. He found that talking slowly in a low and quiet manner when he was angry instilled a lot more fear in his servants rather than outright yelling at them. Fear was a powerful tool, it kept those in the Chaos Realm from doing anything he deemed stupid or heroic.

"My Lord it is the only way I can do it…" Lewis, a brilliant but haggard old servant of the Realm, blabbered frozen in place by the fear of the young man dressed in his dark sinister armor standing mere inches from him. Jarran moved uncomfortably close to the man, his face so close that the white blond strands of his bangs tickled Lewis's eyes making him blink rapidly. Jarran shockingly green eyes studied the man's eyes for any hint of a lie or deception and only when he found none did he pull away from him and turn his back.

"I see…" Jarran muttered, his left hand coming to rest on his sword hilt. The blade was a dark metallic black, but it was unlike Ashani's in that it didn't have a hand guard make of bones or dark crimson blood of thousands of mortals from the Earth Realm staining it. Lewis took a couple steps backward, afraid for his life. A small part of him felt silly for being afraid of Jarran for the young man was a mere infant compared to Lewis in age, but then the voice of reason reminded him that he was nothing more than a simple servant while Jarran was born with the ability to manipulate the negative energy of Chaos. That made him pretty much the most dangerous person Lewis could think of right now.

"Please have mercy my Lord…" Lewis stuttered. Jarran's hand left his sword hilt as he turned halfway around to look at him. The young man was actually smiling at him, though it was a sad smile.

"Why does everyone think I'll kill them?" Lewis was too terrified to answer his master, so Jarran continued, "Everyone serves a purpose and everyone can be put to work for the greater good of the Realm. Killing them solves nothing…"

"You approve of the plan then my Lord?"

"Of course. It might even prove to be entertaining. Do not disappoint me Lewis." Jarran didn't say, 'or else' but Lewis clearly caught the underlying threat in his master's tone of voice.

As Jarran left the room, Lewis collapsed into one of his chairs feeling relieved. He rubbed his temples to alleviate the headache that he had and tried to jump start his mind. He had a lot of work ahead of him, but he was confident that he could get it done quickly. After all, one doesn't suggest a plan to a being of ridiculous power like Jarran without being able to carry it out if said person wants to keep their head on their shoulders.

* * *

"I can't believe it's all over Cody," Barbara said happily as she closed the magazine that she had been reading and set it down next to her empty lunch tray. Cody nearly jumped at her voice, his mind had been wandering around thinking about the dreams that he'd been having lately. He glanced down at his Tupperware box and saw that he still had half of his egg salad sandwich left to eat. If was a warm and peaceful afternoon at their high school and it was the last lunch that they would ever have there together. It was the last day of school for seniors.

"I know. It feels just like yesterday we moved here…" he trailed off referring to his family moving to Boston and taking up residence at the Tipton hotel which was now in shambles. He took a bite out of his sandwich in the silence. Cody was still a good cook, that much hadn't changed.

"You deserve it though Cody, you worked harder than everyone else," Barbara said referring to his achievement as valedictorian. She'd been upset to find out that she hadn't made it herself, but she still was the salutatorian and he didn't want to get her all upset again. It was supposed to be a happy time for them, stepping out of their lives as public school students into the world of adult jobs and their college years.

"You worked every bit as hard too, don't go kicking yourself now. Your parents and I are really proud of you," Cody said, deciding that he didn't want the rest of his lunch, packing what was left into his lunch bag and stuffing that into his nearly empty backpack. He felt weird without the heavy weight of a bunch of textbooks, papers and supplies in it.

"Thank you Cody, you're so sweet," she replied leaning into him, a hand going up under his t-shirt to rest against his bare back as she gave him a deep passionate kiss. All thoughts of scholastic achievement were lost to him as he embraced Barbara back, his body and mind being drawn in by her beauty and the love that they shared.

"Tonight," Barbara whispered as she broke the kiss. Cody had no illusions about what she meant, though he was a bit nervous. It would be their first time after all. He couldn't stop himself from blushing slightly and she giggled in response.

The bell rang signaling an end to the lunch period. Just a few more classes to go and he'd be done with high school forever, with the exception of the graduation ceremony. Just a few more hours after that and…well, try as hard as he might Cody couldn't help thinking about it.

* * *

The final bell sounded, a dreadfully shrill tone that used to make Zack wince since its a little rough on the ears, releasing about a thousand students into the hallways. Everyone was eager to get the heck out of there, including him, since it was the final day of school for the seniors. A sly smile touched his lips when he thought about the times long ago that his brother had told him he'd be in jail by the time he was eighteen and their mother didn't think he'd live long enough to make it to senior year. Zack had managed to pull himself together after the whole failure to graduate middle school thing and an abysmal freshman year in high school. Something had come over him following the final battle and things just started coming easier to him. Zack was nowhere close to Cody's level of scholastic achievement, yes those were big words, but he was definitely doing far better than before. Speaking of Cody…

"Cody! Aren't you ready yet?" Zack asked him, sticking his head into the AP Chemistry class. Cody was busy finishing some last minute research project that he'd been working on since they'd gotten back from the winter holidays. Zack didn't know why he was still bothering with it. They were done. They were walking across the stage in a few days on Saturday morning…It felt really good to finally be done with public school after all of these years, and yet it was kind of frightening at the same time too. Not knowing what the future held in store for you. That sort of thing…

"Yeah just a minute," He replied, mixing a couple of vials of blue fluids into a beaker. The two liquids fizzed and bubbled like a freshly opened soda when they made contact with each other. Even though Zack was getting really good at school, he still didn't much care for it. However, he had to admit chemistry was usually a fun class…when the teachers let him actually work with the chemicals anyway.

Zack stepped back out the door as his phone started vibrating in the pocket of his khaki shorts. The phone wasn't anything special, just something he and Cody had gotten together since they were buy one get one free, so it wasn't a fancy touch screen, PDA or anything cool like that. Thumbing through the prompts he read the text message that their mom had just sent him – _"Groceries! Drive safe sweetie."_ Zack sighed, knowing that he and Cody had to do the shopping today. Without answering, he slid it back into his pocket. Maybe if he ignored the message and pretended to forget about the whole thing they could get out of doing it tonight.

"Aren't you ready yet?" Zack hollered into the room as he entered and jumped up onto the edge of the counter to sit down. There was a funny smell in the air he noticed, not that there wasn't always a funny smell in the chemistry lab, but this was far different. It almost smelled like gasoline, but it burned his nostrils and made his eyes water. Looking over at Cody, Zack saw that whatever it was it wasn't bothering him in the slightest and naturally assumed that it was something he knew about. Boy was Zack wrong.

"Almost done," He replied in a distracted way.

So this was it. The last day in public school. The single most hated place in Zack's life was about to disappear forever. He didn't have any real plan for the future, not like Cody who was already submitting college applications left and right to top universities around the country. Zack was just planning on working full time and saving up some money for however long it took him to find out what he wanted to do with his life. There was always college, Cody insisted that while Zack's grades wouldn't be good enough for the schools he wanted to get into they would be good enough for most state and community colleges. Maybe he'd do that, but Zack didn't really know what he was good at yet…

Zack felt an odd feeling wash over him all of a sudden, something that he couldn't readily explain. It started out as a tingling feeling running down his entire body from head to toe, followed by a series of static shocks washing over exposed skin. Zack jumped off the counter as fast as lightning, rubbing his arms tying to get rid of the tingling pain and smoothing down the blond hairs on his arms that were standing up straight. Cody looked over from his experiment where he was bent over fiddling with the controls of a burner, a confused expression on his face.

"You ok Zack?"

"Yeah, just shocked myself," Cody turned the knob to start the burner as he turned back to his work, and that's exactly the moment when everything blew up in our face.

The small flame ignited the gas which had been leaking into the air from a loose seal on a pipe somewhere in the wall behind the burner. Time slowed down as the air between Zack and Cody burst into flames. Zack lunged forward, trying to reach Cody, but he seemed to be moving too slow. The heat of the flames washed over him and he dived to the ground to escape the expanding cloud of fire. It was all happening so fast, Zack was amazed that he hadn't just stood there frozen in complete shock. His body just seemed to jump into action without hesitation, knowing what needed to be done.

"ZACK!" Cody screamed from somewhere above. He crawled forward until he could still see Cody's legs where he was standing, and tackled him to the ground just as flames rippled through the air above him. His brother fell on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs and rolled off of him into the cabinets set underneath the counter top. Zack couldn't hear anything now except for the sound of rushing wind and a dull roar. As he gasped for breath, his mind raced trying to think of a way to get out of this nightmare.

Flames rebounded around the room, setting the walls, roof and everything in the classroom ablaze. As Zack watched the desks around him catch fire, a small part of his brain logged the fact that the fire was hot enough to burn through the metal parts of it. That wasn't possible for normal fire…If it was hot enough to burn through metal, they should be dead now just from the heat of the flames, and yet they were perfectly fine.

The wall above them exploded, sending chunks of concrete careening into the room taking out several desks and smashing out several windows. A wall of flame descended upon them, racing towards the twins incredibly fast. So this was it. They would die meaningless deaths here on the floor of a classroom on their last day of school. They wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Cody staying behind to mess with his project. Neither of them wanted to die!

That wish came true…

As the roaring inferno consumed them, it was deflected over and around them by a thin sheet of golden light that conformed to their body shapes. Debris and shrapnel fell on top of them, but couldn't touch either twin as they bounced off the shielding light.

Zack felt the presence of Cody's light powers projecting the shield around the both of them as everything outside of it was destroyed with what seemed like the force of a bomb. Fire raced past the shield, creating a ripple effect on its surface much like a pebble does by skipping across a pond, and all manner of heavy objects bounced off of it making the shield flare momentarily. Cody managed to hold it together though, this was child's play for him and it became stupidly easy as Zack gathered himself together and reinforced his brother's shield with one of his own.

The whole thing seemed to go on forever for them, but to the outside observer it would have been over in seconds. As the intensity of the flames died away and everything settled down, Zack looked around at the destroyed classroom in awe. The whole place had been gutted…

The door to the classroom had been blown out into the hallway, the windows and the walls separating each of them had all been blasted apart leaving a gaping hole in the side of the room, the roof had caved in here and there and everything inside the chemistry lab was a charred mess.

"Come on, we've gotta get out of here," Cody said, standing up and looking around before his gaze settled on the gaping hole in the wall which lead out onto the front of the school's grounds. There was a cloud of dark black smoke billowing out of it, parts of the classroom were still on fire. "Hold your breath."

Cody led them out through the smoke, but as soon as they were enveloped by it Zack felt his brother tug him upward rather than continuing to run forward. They soared upward through the black smoke and landed on the school's roof.

"Why are we up here?" Zack asked, puzzled and still in shock over what had just happened to them.

"The lab just exploded and we come running out completely unscathed, not a single scratch or burn on us. Don't you think that'll raise some eyebrows?"

"Yeah, I hadn't thought of that."

"We need to get over to the parking lot, pretend like we were there the whole time, find the girls and get the hell out of here," Cody said, looking around and leading Zack over to the roof access on the far side of the building and climbing down.

* * *

A few hours later after the fires had been put out and the gas shut off at the twin's high school, an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria pulled up to the school and parked in the staff parking lot. A thin woman with shoulder length brown hair who appeared to be somewhere in her thirties and dressed in a grey business suit stepped out of it. She took off sunglasses and set them on top of her head as she surveyed the damage done to the public school.

The woman was FBI Special Agent Marissa Evans. She had been called here by the Boston Police Department precinct responsible for this area. Every branch of emergency services and public works had standing orders to report anything they saw that was so far beyond the ordinary to the FBI immediately. The government was still trying to figure out what had happened over two years in downtown Boston and so the whole city has under heavy scrutiny.

"Agent Evans?" a police Captain asked her as she approached the yellow tape around the area. She let him look over her Federal ID card and then held up the tape for her to enter the area.

"Captain Michael Turner," he greeted, "This way ma'am."

"So what do we have here Captain?" Marissa inquired as he led her into the building directly in front of them and into the main hallway. At the far end of the hallway she could see a bit of the devastation that had been wrought upon the classroom, the door was burnt to a crisp lying on the floor and the walls around the doorway were blackened. Even some of the lockers lining the wall had been melted.

"Just your typical gas leak getting ignited kind of explosion,"

"You would not have called me here for something typical."

"No I would not have. Let's forget for a moment that this fire was hot enough to melt the metal in the classroom, which shouldn't be possible for how short it lasted. That's not what's out of the ordinary here…"

Captain Turner led Agent Evans into the destroyed classroom and stepped to the side to allow her to pass into the room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the floor and she gasped.

"Now that, I really can't explain…" He trailed off as Evans took a few steps forward and kneeled down to inspect what had caught her eye. Amidst the destruction, debris and ash covered floor was a spot of perfectly preserved cheap white tile that the public schools used for their floors. At first glance the tile looked to be in the shape of a person lying on the ground, resembling a murder chalk line on street pavement, but then something else about the spot intrigued her.

"As best I can figure, someone was lying down here while the explosion happened…"

"Not just someone Captain, two someone's," Agent Evans replied.

"What?" She pointed to several spots on the body outline.

"That looks to be a third leg, a third arm there and that over there might be a fourth hand. There were two people here, one was lying on top of the other protecting them…"

"This is crazy,"

"Captain, I must inform you that as of now this investigation is in the hands of the FBI."

* * *

Jarran is up to no good it seems, just as any evil villain should be, but we learn something about him here. He is a radically powerful person from the Chaos Realm and yet it seems as if he prefers not to simply outright kill people, believing that everyone can serve a purpose or be put to work for the betterment of his Realm.

Meanwhile school is over for the twins, Cody and Barbara are making plans for the night and Zack is trying to shirk his responsibilities just like old times but before you can say "BOOM" everything blows up in their face.

Not even a few hours later, the FBI is snooping around the strange occurrence. Will Agent Evans figure out who was in the classroom when it exploded? What will happen to the twins if she does?

Was the explosion at school Jarran's handiwork, a freak accident or something completely different?

Stay Tuned for **Chapter 3: Rainy Day**

A/N: The whole scene at school might sound a little off (from the start of Zack checking in on Cody till they're lying on the ground underneath their shields) if you're used to my writing style. That's because this part was originally for a different story that I abandoned, but decided to incorporate this part here. It was also written in first person from Zack's POV so I had to rework it into third to match the rest of the story and then build the rest of the scene onto it from scratch.

Let me know how you like the story so far!!!


	4. Rainy Day

**Chapter 3**

**"Rainy Day"**

_No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes  
And no one knows  
What it's like to be hated  
To be fated to telling only lies_

_"Behind Blue Eyes," by Limp Bizkit_

Deep in the heart of the Chaos Realm was the Imperial City, a towering labyrinth of buildings, spires, temples and a magnificent palace sitting on a small mountain overlooking everything. This was the place from where the entire Realm was ruled. In the days of Ashani's reign, things were darker and the living conditions far worse. Since his demise however the darkness had brightened and the entire city was cast in a dim aquamarine color bringing light to the underground world and a better life for the denizens of the city.

The Chaos Realm was home to more than just demons, for humans could be seen here clear as day. The Demons made up the armies of the realm, but humans also accounted for a vast number of the population as well. Almost all of them are born normal mortals just like their cousins in the Earth Realm, but a select few are born immortal with the ability to control the negative energy of chaos.

Most of these immortals are the result of another immortal having a child with a mortal, but a few come from purely mortal lineage as well. They are all taken up by the Champions of the Realm, who rule the Chaos Realm and are all immortals themselves, to be educated and trained as a Champion. Jarran is just one of many people like this, though he is by far the youngest and most powerful.

There was a spectacular burst of red and purple light just outside the Palace of Chaos and the whole city seemed to shake in response. A dull booming noise raced out in all directions from the explosion, kicking up dust and all manner of lightweight objects. Every eye in the city turned to look up at the palace in puzzlement. What was going on up there?

Jarran landed lightly on the north side of the palace's courtyard, red lightning sparking off of his pitch black armor. He looked a lot younger now than when he had been so serious before in his dealings with Father Time and Lewis. A delighted smile was plastered on his devilishly handsome face and several strands of his blond hair were plastered to his sweaty forehead. He stared across the courtyard to the southern side and drew his metallic black sword.

On the southern end, matching Jarran's movement, was an equally devilishly beautiful woman with white blond hair. She too was clad in pitch black armor, though hers appeared far more worn and battle tested than Jarran's. Her name was Pandora, Jarran's elder cousin.

Pandora was actually several millennia older than her cousin, born around the same time as his father, but rather than treat him like a distant relative and never bother with him Pandora had actually been the most influential person in his short life. She'd helped raise him like a son, but once Jarran grew up into his teen years she started treating him like a lovable younger brother. The two were very close, though in the days after Ashani's downfall, they saw very little of each other as both of them were tasked as Champions of the Realm with keeping the entire place under control in the power vacuum that had been left behind.

Jarran launched himself at Pandora, skimming just inches above the ground towards her, and unleashed a vicious flurry of attacks with his sword. She easily kept pace, blocking, parrying and giving back as good as she took. They broke apart, Jarran pulled Chaos energy into the palm of his hand and blasted Pandora with lance after lance of negative energy. She deflected them and strafed to the side.

Rings of negative energy appeared out of nowhere and bound Jarran's arms and legs. The surprise attack made him lose concentration and fall out of the air, bouncing on the ground and sliding to a stop. He quickly collected himself and expanded his aura, it took a lot of power to break the bindings but he managed. Jarran rolled away, narrowly dodging another of Pandora's attacks and sprung to his feet.

They blasted each other in the blink of an eye at the same exact time. A sonic boom echoed into the distance and a wave of over pressure sent them both tumbling a few feet backwards into the air. Jarran quickly recovered and sent a lance of negative energy the size of a mortal subway car at Pandora. It was far too big for her to deflect, so she copied the attack and both lances smashed together halfway to each other.

"You're a brat!" Pandora shouted as the energy from their beams cascaded back and forth from where they met to their respective casters. Static electricity raced across their armor and lightning bolts leapt out all over the place racing across the courtyard in all directions.

"I like winning!" Jarran yelled back and then he grunted in exertion as he pulled more and more negative energy into himself. He was now dangerously close to losing control over it, but he held on and quickly overpowered his cousin. She dodged aside and shielded herself from the trailing edge of Jarran's beam as it passed by her into the darkness beyond the city. There was a dull booming noise as it impacted somewhere far away.

"You like winning, but you haven't mastered all the ways of doing it. You can't rely on the same strategy and strength in every battle," Pandora criticized him, floating back over to him.

She was very wise in her age, being an old immortal could do that to you. Pandora was also extremely powerful and had a masterful amount of control over the negative energy of Chaos and while Jarran had learned a lot from her, he still struggled to refine his own control. He was more powerful than she was in raw physical strength and Chaos energy, but her control and battle experience gave her an unprecedented edge over him when they sparred. It was proof that some things just couldn't be inherited.

"I have been practicing though," Jarran defended himself, hating it when people pointed out his flaws like all teenagers do.

"I see that." She said, giving him a warm smile and a hug that took all the fight out of him. It was just like old times. Only with Pandora could he be his true self, and Jarran deeply worried that he might some day lose himself in the act he put on to maintain his status, control and respect in the Realm.

"It's good to have you back home," Jarran said before pulling away from her and walking towards the palace. Pandora fell into step alongside of him.

"It's good to be home. Now what's the emergency you called me here for?"

"Father Time is up to something. He has spies in our realm and I have reason to believe that he is also mucking around in the Earth Realm too. I don't know what he's up to, but I don't like it." Jarran knew this because he'd visited the Earth Realm several more times since he'd seen the Child of Light at the battleground where Ashani fell. He'd felt things changing around him, he was of course immune to the changes since he wasn't from the Earth Realm, but he could definitely notice them. Just little things here and there changing, but a lot of little changes could add together to make one big change.

"Didn't you go to the Time Realm to warn him?" He hadn't told Pandora about that directly, but Jarran had no doubt she'd heard it through one information network or another in the Chaos Realm. Someone so young as Jarran had never before gone to another realm in such a show of force warning off said realm's lord. In fact he couldn't recall it ever being done at all. People were talking.

"Yeah, but apparently he didn't take me seriously. I'm worried he might try something while I'm away,"

"Away? Where are you going" She paused mid step and looked at him with concern. Jarran knew what she was thinking. Now was NOT the time to be weakening Chaos's defenses with Time messing around and Earth now having the lion's share of power balance between light and dark. As the strongest Champion of Chaos, Jarran was needed here.

"I've discovered an opportunity in the Earth Realm too big too pass up. In a few weeks we can have both Earth and Chaos and then Time would be too weak to stand against us,"

"Really now? Do tell…"

* * *

Cody awoke in the early morning hours, the dim white blue light of the moon shining in through his bedroom window. He lay in his bed for a moment in a sleepy daze, wondering if he was really awake or still dreaming. When he'd gone to bed, he was feeling pretty exhausted and his dreams had been peaceful for once so he wasn't quite sure what exactly it was that woke him up. Brushing it off Cody rolled over onto his stomach, pulled his blankets back over himself and tried to get back to sleep.

Try as he might, he just couldn't fall asleep again. His brain was abuzz with activity, thinking about yesterday's explosion in the chemistry lab, his time spent with Barbara later that evening and a nagging feeling that there was something else he should have on his mind. Whatever it was though, it eluded him.

With an annoyed sigh, Cody rolled out of bed and shuffled over to his bedroom door. Since he was up, he might as well grab something to drink. His mouth was dry and he felt thirsty enough to drink a gallon of water.

He was careful not too make too much noise leaving his room, it was three in the morning after all, since his bedroom was in between Zack's and their mom's. Technically the apartment that they were living in only had two bedrooms, the one at the end of the hallway which was Carey's and the one in the middle which Cody had claimed. The place also had an office, which they converted into Zack's room and a moderately sized living room with a small kitchen space squeezed off on the side by the front door. The place was alright, not as classy as their old suite at the Tipton, but the boys finally had their own rooms apart from each other and Carey no longer had to sleep on the couch and that made the place a perfect home for them.

As Cody passed Zack's room he heard heavy erratic breathing just behind the door. What was he doing up at this hour? Cody knocked softly and whispered his brother's name just loud enough to be head through the door.

"Sup, come in," Zack replied, sounding out of breath. Cody entered and his eyes went from Zack's bed, which was a mess of tangled sheets, down to the floor where his twin was. Zack was doing push ups and he seemed to be struggling. He was only wearing his black gym shorts so it was easy to see the sweat covering his upper body and the wet spot on the floor where it had dripped off his face onto the carpet.

"You're working out at three in the morning?" Cody asked incredulously, sitting on the edge of Zack's bed. It wasn't an odd thing for them to be working out, ever since the final battle they both had been taking steps to take care of their bodies with the proper diet and exercise. It was almost as if they were subconsciously staying prepared in the event that something bad happened and they had to take up the fight again.

Zack worked out quite a bit, mostly strengthening his upper body and abs. Cody didn't work out as much, but he was still in the best shape of his life and had found out to his surprise that he was a good long distance runner and he wasn't too shabby at sprints. Max and Barbara definitely approved of them working out all the time. They said it made them more sexy. Cody shook off that last thought, realizing his brother was talking to him.

"I don't want to sleep," Zack replied between breaths. He knocked out a few more pushups slowly and arched his back to rest for a moment.

"How many of those have you done anyway?" Zack considered the question for a moment.

"Lost count after two hundred…" He finally answered. Cody wasn't surprised, the power of the light left them with passive strengths and abilities even when they weren't tapping into the flow of energy that was wrapped around them just out of sight. It explained why they were both so good at the things they liked without really trying to hard at it, such as sports for Zack and school for Cody.

"So why don't you want to sleep?" Cody asked, returning to his original line of questioning. He sensed his brother's inner turmoil and for some reason Zack felt really cold when Cody reached out to him with his mind, almost as if the light had left him even though it was still right there around him. Zack gave up on the pushups and rolled over onto his back completely exhausted.

He didn't say anything for awhile, almost as if he was considering whether or not he wanted to truthfully answer the question. While Cody waited, he reached out with his mind and pulled light into his hand. It was always a rush trying to tap into his power, it wanted to surge into him with everything it had so fast and he had to push against it to keep it from overwhelming him. He played with a sphere of light, no bigger than a marble, making it do a series of elaborate figure eights between his spread fingers. His control was getting really good.

"I'm afraid to sleep…" Zack finally answered. Cody hadn't expected that. His brother was rarely one to be afraid of something, let alone these days being the most powerful person on the planet. The small orb of light exploded into a shower of sparks as Cody dismissed it and he slid off of Zack's bed to sit down on the floor next to him.

"What do you mean?" Zack rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and yawned.

"I can't explain it Codes, I just feel like something or someone is watching me in my dreams and when I'm awake."

"You're having bad dreams too?"

"Well, they start off normal as far as I can remember, but they get really weird."

"How so?"

"Wait a minute, 'You're having bad dreams too?' isn't that what you said? Cody what's wrong?" Zack demanded, the exhaustion seemed to leave his face as a look of concern replaced it.

"This isn't about me right now, tell me what's bothering you."

"Alright…I start to feel like someone is watching me, then all of a sudden everything gets creepy and the next thing I know I'm running for my life and something is trying to grab onto me and pull me down. Every time I have to fight longer and harder to break free, and when I do I wake up…I'm afraid of what might happen if I can't break free again." Zack told him in a rush.

"What about when you're awake?"

"I felt something strange, something wrong, when I went to the old Tipton yesterday. When I started looking for it, the feeling was gone,"

"What the hell were you doing there?"

"I just…I had to go there. I can't explain it even to myself," there was a lengthy pause as Cody thought it over, he couldn't make heads or tails of Zack's story, "So what about you Codes?"

"I think I'm seeing the other Cody's memories. Every dream is about the post apocalyptic future he lived in, and it seems like I'm always running from the Chaos Demons while trying to save people only to have them perish until it's just me left." Cody admitted, thinking about the little girl he'd held in his arms in his last dream. The look of terror on her face, the trust and love in her eyes as she looked to her new protector who would never truly be able to save her from the coming darkness. He shuddered at the sad memory.

"Think this is all related?" Zack wondered aloud, stifling another yawn with the back of his hand. He looked wiped out, his eyelids were starting to droop.

"Maybe," Cody replied, taking note that his brother was about to pass out despite his best efforts to stay awake. Who knew how long he hadn't slept. It could have been days by now.

"What are we going to do about it? They're just dreams after all…"

"I wouldn't mind talking to Taschen." The Lord Guardian of the Earth Realm had sad that he would be around if he was needed. Well perhaps now was as good a time as any to meet with him and see if he knew if anything weird was going on. Cody wondered how to get a hold of him, but that question could wait to be answered for right now.

"Sorry, I'm just so tired Codes…" Zack mumbled, running his hands through his hair and taking several deep breaths to stop from yawning again.

"Get some sleep Zack. I'm gonna stay up and go over my speech again. Nothing will happen to you while I'm watching over you." Zack looked almost embarrassed to hear that his brother would watch over him, but then his body's desire for sleep won him over and he crawled up into his bed and lay face down on the comforter. Cody went back to his room for a moment, grabbed some index cards, a pen, his mp3 player and then went into the kitchen to grab a soda and something to snack on. He returned to Zack's room, finding his brother already fast asleep, and sat down at his computer desk to start editing his speech. He put his ear buds in and turned on his music player while taking a sip from the soda. Cody started to softly sing the lyrics as he tapped his pen against the index cards, not realizing what he was saying nor how true it was for a Child of the Light.

"Here's the weight of the world on my shoulders…"

Outside the Martin's apartment the gentle rain that had been falling for most of the night started to come down heavier, adding its soft background noise to the silence of the place. The sound subconsciously soothed Zack's mind, lulling him into a deep dreamless sleep where he could finally get some rest. Cody couldn't hear the rain, but he could feel it. Even with his mind abuzz with questions about the dreams the twins were having and the speech he was determined to get right for graduation, he could distantly sense the rain falling outside in the gentle vibrations it was making in the power of the light flowing all around him. It made him feel a little bit better, like the comfort a mother gives to her child after they've had a bad dream and are convinced that the monster is still under the bed or in the closet.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Sorry for the delay getting this chapter out. I liked writing it, but it was just slow because I had a hard time advancing the plot after Jarran and Pandora's action sequence.

So to recap, we've got Father Time messing around in both Realms though only Chaos knows about it. Chaos is trying to regain power in Earth while preparing to defend itself from Time and Earth remains blissfully unaware that anything is happening.

What's about to happen to Zack and Cody? Will it be Time to make the first move, or will Chaos strike first? Find out this and more in **Chapter 4: Expect The Unexpected**

* * *

_Also, I'm throwing so much stuff out there, thought I'd put up a relation for everyone. There are the three realms, Earth, Chaos and Time. Each one has a Realm Lord –_

**Earth** (Him, though he can be referred to as God but that's not what people from Chaos or Taschen call him. We never see him. He acts through Taschen)

**Chaos** (Ashani was the former Realm Lord, there is mention of a power vacuum in his downfall, but the Realm seems to be running smoothly again so someone must be in control of it now)

**Time** (Father Time, little is known about him yet)

_- and each one also has Champions of the Realm to defend it and maintain the balance of power –_

**Earth** (Children of the Light – Zack, Cody, Max, Taschen)

**Chaos** (Champions of Chaos – Jarran, Pandora)

**Time** (We haven't met any yet)


	5. Expect The Unexpected

**Chapter 4**

"**Expect The Unexpected"**

_  
In a world beyond controlling  
Are you going to deny the savior  
In front of your eyes  
Stare into the night  
Power beyond containing  
Are you going to remain a slave for  
The rest of your life  
Give into the night_

_"The Night" by Disturbed_

Father Time made his move sooner than anyone had expected. Just two days after Pandora had arrived at the Imperial City in the Chaos Realm his minions had breached the realm and were massing for attacks upon the major centers of power while laying waste to smaller less populated areas. The Chaos Demons were moving to meet this threat in several different locations all over the realm. The Champions of Chaos were scrambling to get themselves spread out enough to effectively counter this new threat.

Not even half a mile outside the Imperial City, the largest force of Time Minions had gathered to crush the capitol city of the realm. Between them stood one of the largest armies of Chaos Demons that had ever been gathered, comprised of all manner of nightmarish creatures straight out of fantasy and horror novels, and the most powerful Champion once again dressed in his beautiful but deadly looking black armor. Jarran wasn't too worried, this enemy force would never get to the city while he drew breath. He only wish Pandora was still here. She wasn't too far away, but she was needed elsewhere to repel Time's attacks on the city of Gatekeeper which was the second largest in the realm.

Jarran and the Demons slowly advanced upon Time's army which was made up of rock and crystal golems, mechanical sentinels and other weird creatures. He halted his own army at the top of tall hill, watching their enemies approach the bottom. Jarran didn't need to shout commands or use any kind of signals. He'd been taught as a child how to direct the demons with his mind as they could pick up on changes to the flow of chaos energy around them.

The golems started to hurl rocks at the demons like an artillery barrage while the sentinels started firing off a rain of deadly spike clusters. With no real long range capability, this first attack might have done serious damage to the demons if it wasn't for Jarran evening the odds. He expanded his aura and directed all of it to get in front of him, which created a barrier of reddish pink light just in front of the demon line. He smiled in satisfaction as the spikes were vaporized on contact and the rock barrages bounced off, rolled back downhill and tripped up Time's army.

"You picked the wrong guy to mess with Time!!!" Jarran roared, drawing Defiance which was the name of his magical black sword. The shield of negative energy dropped and the demons charged forward downhill with their leader. His feet pounded into the ground, his breathing increased and sweat beaded on his forehead. Jarran lived for stuff like this.

Jarran swept his free arm forward directing a blast of energy which chained explosions in front of him, upsetting the preparations the golems were making to defend their front line. He breached through their line easily, Defiance becoming a blur as Jarran struck golem after golem slicing off legs and smashing others into glass dust. Putting the sword in both hands, he then pulled apart and Defiance separated into dual short swords. Moving even faster now Jarran had more in common with a weed whacker than a warrior as both swords flashed in all directions with uncanny speed and accuracy crushing Time's army. Debris from the destroyed golems were everywhere and Jarran fought in a cloud of dust as he moved.

Looking back he saw that his demons weren't having much luck. They were slowly grinding forward while their leader was sowing chaos inside Time's army, but the demons were pretty much evenly matched on the ground and in the air where the shadows and banshees were fighting the sentinels. He searched the battleground and didn't find what he was looking for. Jarran concentrated for a second, putting out a call for any dragons that might be in the area to even the odds in the air.

Jarran combined both swords back into one which then grew in length to become a great sword, jumped up into the air and slammed into Time's front line. Defiance was held one handed in his right hand slicing through golems while he blasted even more golems out of his way and to the left with negative energy. The demons could lose this fight if he didn't keep Time's minions off balance.

Something was wrong though. He felt the warnings come from his shadows and banshees first, which were higher up in the air. Jarran pulled away and hovered over his own army to get a better picture of things while he caught his breath. Then he saw what was wrong. Golems were moving aside to make way for someone passing between them.

"Overlord," Jarran whispered, partly in respect and partly in fear. He was confident in his own abilities, but here was Time's greatest champion bearing down on him. He would feel the same way if he were to face the White Knight, Zachary Martin, the greatest champion of earth. Things were about to get interesting indeed.

"Jarran Noh'Malkiri, your time is up!" Overlord roared as he leapt up into the air in the blink of an eye and whipped his magical spear around catching Jarran off guard. Before he could react the bottom of the spear smashed into his armor, denting it and sending the young Champion crashing down into his demon army. He lay there for a moment stunned, trying to pull air into his lungs to replace the breath that had been knocked out of him.

Overlord rocketed downwards, not giving him a chance to recover and might have finished off Jarran if not for his quick thinking in directing the demons around him to protect him. Several large orcs and a couple of trolls barricaded their leader and caught Time's champion. As Jarran rolled to his feet, Overlord broke free sending the orcs holding him down from the sides flying backward into the lines of his own army and then ran the trolls through with his spear, causing them to explode into smoke.

The air around Jarran wavered, like heat rising from the surface of pavement on a hot sunny day, and then coalesced into a hellish mixture of red and pink light. Just as Overlord finished off the trolls, Jarran sent a powerful lance of negative energy into the other Champion blasting him backward and scorching his armor. Thin wisps of smoke rose from his blackened blood red armor as he recovered from the sudden and powerful attack.

"That's not possible…" Overlord stated in disbelief, "I am the most powerful of all Champions and have been for millennia. No seventeen year old Champion is this powerful!"

"We are indeed this powerful," Jarran teased, static electricity arcing back and forth between the tip of Defiance and the hand holding it at his side.

"We?"

"It is a new age Overlord. If you think I'm powerful, just wait until Earth's White Knight and Truth Seeker get a hold of you if I don't kill you first."

"I'd like to see you try young pup." As he finished his statement, Jarran became a blur as he raced forward through the air just inches off the ground propelled by the negative energy he'd been building up while they had been talking. Overlord moved to shield himself, but Jarran simply pushed his arm out of the way with his free hand and drove Defiance home through the Overlord's chest plate. The Champion of Chaos towered over the Champion of Time and spat on his armor just next to where his dark sword still protruded from the chest of his adversary.

Explosions boomed overhead heralding the arrival of a pair of ancient dragons blasting several flying sentinels out of the air. Jarran leapt back up into the air above his army and directed his demons to start pulling back and shield themselves. He drew in an enormous amount of energy, his aura glowed bright red casting him in an unhealthy light, letting it build all around him. Time's army looked up in wonderment as the negative energy seemed to suck all other light into it so that the gentle aquamarine light of the Chaos Realm was replaced by this menacing red glow. Every creature down there could feel its power through the currents of electricity crackling in the air around them and the change in pressure caused by the displacement of air around the negative energy.

"This ends now!" Jarran bellowed, releasing the hell storm of power into the heart of Time's army. The young Champion had never seen the movie Terminator 2 from the Earth Realm where Sarah Conner falls asleep and dreams of a nuclear explosion going off in the big city just beyond where she is playing with her son at the park, but if Jarran had seen the movie he would have been reminded of that scene.

With his power now completely spent Jarran tumbled out of the air, his dark armor shredding into smoke and being replaced by the shirt and jeans that he wore underneath it, and nearly crashed into the ground head first before one of his dragons gently snatched him out of the air with its massive clawed foot and carried him off to the palace where it deposited him safely upon its grounds. The handiwork of the young Champion still lit up the area, a deafening roar the only hint to the destruction it was causing to Time's army behind the blinding light of the explosion.

* * *

"Zack watch out!" Cody Martin warned his twin brother as a beam of brilliant white light was reflected back towards him. Zack barely moved out of the way in time as the beam smashed into the ground, sending chunks of concrete flying everywhere as the light violently exploded. Above the brothers floated a metallic object with a great many appendages, sort of like an armor clad robotic octopus. Only this thing was far more deadly than the sea creature that it resembled.

Cody pulled his right arm back as though he were about to throw a baseball and a sphere of golden light appeared in his hand as he tapped into the light energy flowing through him. He threw the sphere at the mechanical monster only to watch it ricochet off the metallic armor surrounding its body.

"What the hell is this thing?" Zack asked, leaping up to deliver a powerful kick to it since their light powers were ineffective on it. He succeeded in knocking it backwards through the air with his light enhanced strength, but then was swatted away by one of the machines many appendages. Cody watched as Zack fell to the ground on his back and lay still for a moment, obviously stunned. If any other person had been hit like that they would probably be dead by now, but the Children of Light seemed to gain some sort of extra protection and hardiness from the light making them harder to injure or kill.

An idea passed through Cody's mind and he summoned his shield and Excalibur. He used the shield to block the machines arms which were swinging at him, feeling the strength of each blow reverberate through him, and used his magical sword to cleave several of the appendages in half when the opportunity presented itself.

Since the machine was distracted it never saw Zack coming up from the other side of it with his sword, Fortitude, in hand. It never knew he was there until he drove the magical blade through the creature, eliciting a shower of sparks and smoke. Both brothers jumped back as it fell from the air and landed in a heap.

"Did we kill it?" Zack pondered, kicking one of its many arms with the toe of his shoe.

"I think so…but what did we kill?" Cody replied, letting his shield burst into a shower of golden sparks but keeping Excalibur in hand and probing the machine with the tip of the blade.

"Dammit why can't we just have a normal afternoon?"

"I have a funny feeling that the possibility of any more normal days for us just went out the window Zack." Cody said thinking about the dark nightmares he'd been having, Zack's fear of sleeping, the explosion in the chemistry lab on their last day of school and now this machine attacking them while they'd been practicing at the same skate park where Zack had first been attacked two years ago by the Chaos Demons and Future Cody had come to his rescue.

"I hope no one saw us…" Zack muttered, looking around for anyone that might have been watching after the machine showed up and sent the handful of people at the skate park running in all directions after it had started attacking them. Cody looked around too and let Excalibur turn into light and rejoin his soul. He also hoped no one had seen them for any chance at having a normal life would be wiped out if people could identify them and start talking.

"You can bet that someone did. Let's get the hell out of here…"

* * *

**A/N:** Whew, been awhile since I worked on this story. Got a bit nostalgic and finished up this chapter real quick. Most of it was written, but I had to add Jarran battling the Overlord (Battling? Is that even the right word? He KICKED HIS ASS!) and the second half of Zack and Cody battling one of Time's machines on Earth. Looks like Father Time is scouting Earth at the same time he's trying to invade the Chaos Realm and failing miserably at both thanks to the three champions smashing his minions.

To provide a visual for Jarran's fight with the Time Minions, imagine Dragonball Z with swords instead of fists and feet.

I know this chapter was mostly about Chaos vs Time, but don't worry, the next one is a cool down chapter and has a lot to do with Zack. Jarran also has a secret to reveal at the end of the next chapter. What is it? If you haven't figured it out yet, then shame on you!

I leave you with these important questions!

- What is Father Time's motive for attacking a fellow dark Realm? Did he think Jarran was bluffing when he said "stay out of my Realm or else..."?

- What does Jarran mean by "going away for awhile" when he speaks to Pandora?

- If Father Time is the antagonist vs Earth, then why is Cody having dreams of the apocalyptic future created by Chaos and Zack being afraid to sleep for fear of not waking up?

- What does Time have planned for Earth, especially now that he's seen the power of Chaos's Champions and can only assume that Earth's Champions are equally powerful seeing as they defeated the Chaos Realm Lord Ashani?

- Just how powerful are Zack and Cody now? They didn't directly defeat Ashani, but they gained the strength and power of the future twin souls. Then you have to remember what Jarran said about them while talking to Overlord...

- Most of all, what is Jarran hiding from us?

**_Please R&R!_**

See you in **Chapter 5: Falling Into Darkness!**


	6. Falling Into Darkness

**Chapter 5**

**"Falling Into Darkness"**

_Assure me it's ok to use my heart and not my eyes  
To navigate the darkness  
Will the ending be ever coming suddenly?  
Will I ever get to see the ending to my story?  
Show me what it's for  
Make me understand it  
I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer  
Is there something more than what I've been handed?_

_"Crawing In The Dark" by Hoobastank_

The school auditorium was jam packed with emotional parents and their graduating students relieved to finally be done with public school that afternoon. Most of the ceremony was complete now and the grads, dressed in their black gowns and squared off hats, sat with their proud parents as the final part of their graduation ceremony began. Zack was among them with his mother and father who had just flown in the day before to see his sons walk across the stage and now the young man felt intensely happy, soaking up his parents love as he held onto the leather bound framed diploma in amazement. He'd made it, just when it seemed like he was doomed to flunk out of school, his life had turned around when he found out that he was a Child of the Light.

Up on stage the valedictorian and salutatorian, none other that Cody Martin and Barbara Brownstien, looked amazing in their white gowns as they prepared to address their classmates in the closing speech. There were a few groans among the crowd as they remembered Cody's incredibly long speech from their middle school graduation, though Zack only smirked at the memory as he was interested to hear his brother's final words to all of the students.

Of course the day hadn't been without incident, but it wasn't mundane and ordinary problems that had bothered the Martin family. In fact is was more of a welcome incident, no matter how unsettling it was. Zack suppressed a yawn with the back of his hand, still exhausted by his sleep deprivation, and let the memory play quickly in his mind.

He had been backstage with the rest of his class talking to Cody about the mechanical monster that had suddenly appeared in the skate park a few days prior while they waited for all of the parents and families to get seated. In the middle of their conversation, another student came up to them in his black gown. Zack didn't recognize the young man for the longest time until he stopped paying attention to his physical senses and felt the other radiating light energy. The Lord Guardian of Earth stood before the twins, looking so normal that he'd been hard to recognize without his flamboyant red and gold robes or elaborate battle armor.

"Tashcen?" Zack inquired as the Guardian smiled at him.

"I can't stay long gentlemen, but I feel that I must warn you…" Taschen looked around to make sure that no one was trying to eavesdrop on them before continuing, "When your future selves defeated Ashani they released a massive quantity of energy in the process, enough energy that several other light Realm Lords felt it."

"There are other places like Earth?" Cody asked, but Taschen waved him to silence.

"Just a few days ago I felt a great expenditure of negative energy from the Chaos Realm. Zack…Cody…whatever or whoever is the cause of that, I must warn you that the power involved rivals your own and is enough to destroy you."

"Ashani's not alive is he?"

"No my friends, he isn't thankfully. Earth's defenses are of average strength right now and we should be safe for the time being, but all the same be careful and watch your backs. Something strange is happening and I'm still trying to figure out what it is. There's another power at work, an ancient one that so far has moved undetected by me." When he finished, Cody told him about the encounter with the machine but Taschen drew a blank on what it was and promised to investigate. The twins didn't ask him any more questions, they knew their Lord Guardian had told them everything that he knew about the current situation.

"We'll be careful Taschen," Zack had promised as the immortal turned and started to walk away. Taschen paused and then turned back around to face them.

"By the way," He gestured around him at all of the activity and preparations for the graduation ceremony, "Congratulations." The Lord Guardian left and when he was out of sight, the twins saw a flicker of red light announcing his departure.

"If our lives were made up of a series of novels, this moment in time would be the end of the last chapter in the book and when we walk out of here today as the graduating class of 2011 the chapter will end. The book will close forever as we move on to the next novel in the series, the next stage of our lives as we take on the responsibilities of adulthood and pursue higher education, employment and our dreams whatever they may be…" Cody was saying, addressing the gathered people from the podium at the center of the stage. He'd gotten over his phobia of talking to large groups of people he didn't know since unlocking his power.

Carey and Kurt held hands as they watched Cody continue his speech. Zack liked Cody's idea about life being a series of novels, it was quite an interesting way to describe all of the different stages one goes through as they grow up from the infant/toddler years, to being a child, a teenager, an adult, a parent and beyond. His eyelids grew heavy and he breathed deeply and tried to sit up straighter to stay awake. He didn't want to fall asleep and be rude to Cody, especially when his speech was actually interesting for a change and wasn't very long, but it was so hard. He was so warm, comfortable and content with his family and friends around him.

* * *

Darkness surrounded him, but it was a weird kind of darkness in that Zack could see himself clear as day. There was nothing around him, no sights, sounds or smells. An icy breeze touched him and he felt goose bumps break out on his arms and the back of his neck. He was no longer in his graduation gown and cap, but standing completely naked. This would have bothered him had there actually been anyone around, but it was just him, the darkness, the icy breeze and the feeling that someone was watching him.

Wait…who was watching him? Zack spun around feeling eyes boring into the back of his head, his white and gold armor bursting into existence over his bare flesh the moment he felt threatened, only to discover there was no one there. No matter which way he turned, he saw nothing but still felt eyes watching him from behind.

"White Knight…" Came the ghostly whisper of something beyond his field of view. If the hairs on his arms and legs hadn't been covered by his armor, he was sure that they would be standing on end. The voice was so creepy…Then Zack woke up inside of his dream and he became aware that he was actually dreaming. It was same dark dream that haunted him every time he went to sleep. He'd fallen asleep. Dammit!

Zack took off running, it seemed like a random direction at first, but he was really following the same thing he always did. He sensed the power of the light distantly in one direction like he always did. If he could get to it, then and only then would he wake up.

He raced through the darkness, feeling the hands come out of the shadows trying to grab him and pull him down. Zack broke free with his super human strength and brought Fortitude into his hand worried that he might need it. It proved to be a good precaution as tentacles sprang out of nowhere and tripped him up. He fell onto his back but maintained control of his magical weapon and hacked himself free.

Zack scrambled onto all fours, feeling that he was close to the light, when bony hands grabbed him through the ground and pulled him down. Caught off guard by this, Fortitude slipped from his hand and remained resting just out of his reach. The bony hands dragged him into the floor which seemed to turn into clear quicksand as they dragged him below the surface. His armor fell away as the air grew colder, the darkness pressed in on him harder than ever before and a sense of hopeless dread filled him.

With no armor, his weapon lost in the shadows above him and the inability to draw upon the distant light Zack was once again naked which only increased his sense of helplessness. He had no weapons to fight with and nothing to protect him from harm. There was no use fighting this time, he couldn't break free of the bony grip or the pull of the darkness that he was falling through. He screamed for help, but his voice sounded small and weak and only traveled a few feet before being swallowed up by the shadows. He didn't want to die like this, he was becoming claimed by terror and even if there was a way to escape, he wasn't in any shape to think of it now.

Glancing below him, Zack saw something taking shape. It was a shadowy grey landscape with what looked like an elaborate fountain below him. In desperation to get away Zack reached out with his right arm trying to claw his way back up. He was surprised when he suddenly felt the presence of the light so powerful and so close to him.

Zack couldn't summon his own light power, he was cut off from the flow of it so deep down, but the light that reached him made the bony hands of the skeletons release him by turning them into dust with its pureness and brightness. The light wrapped around him like a warm blanket and then with a feeling of acceleration pulled him upwards away from the gray landscape and the menacing looking fountain. He felt a deep sense of relief as he emerged onto the surface where Fortitude lay and started thinking clearly. The source of his power was now close enough to draw upon and Zack fully powered up and with his armor once again protecting him, sword and shield in hand, he jumped up off the ground and rocketed through the air towards the point he had been trying to reach earlier.

Even as he raced to escape the dark dream under his own power, he couldn't help but feel the light that had saved him pulling him in the same direction with the urgency that a emergency rescue worker has when they throw a rope out to a victim in the middle of flood waters and reel them back in to safety. The thin crack of light, the doorway back to the real world, lay ahead of him and Zack burst through it at near supersonic speed in his haste to escape. With a start Zachary Martin awoke in the real world.

* * *

Zack looked around, feeling wide awake now, and realized that he was looking up at people standing over him. He had fallen out of his seat and now lay in the aisle between rows. There was a lot of worried chatter going on around him, everyone was concerned that something bad had happened to him. He heard a man talking on the phone, presumably to a 911 operator telling them what had happened and where they were at. It was his father Zack realized.

Kneeling on one side of him was his mother, she had one of his hands in both of hers and was pressing it against her tearstained face. On the other side a person in a white robe knelt next to him, his arms outstretched to the hands that were tightly gripping Zack's shoulders. It was Cody he suddenly realized, radiating an extreme amount of light power that only Zack could feel. Looking into his brother's concerned eyes, Zack could see a soft golden glow replacing the blue-green color.

"Zack?" Cody asked, his power now starting to recede feeling that the danger was past.

"I'm alright," Zack croaked, sitting up and feeling the room spin around him as a headache exploded into existence.

"Oh my baby!" Carey cried, wrapping him up tightly in her arms, "You passed out and fell out of your seat and I couldn't wake you up and I didn't know what to do…" She sobbed. Zack returned the affection, but looked over his mother's shoulder at his father.

"There's an ambulance on the way," he said, and Zack saw the fear on his face. Kurt Martin didn't know what his sons really were and the boys had preferred to keep it that way in order to preserve some of the normalcy of their lives. He had no way of knowing that the paramedics could do nothing for him, nor find anything wrong with him. Only Zack knew what had really happened, Cody had his suspicions based on what Zack had told him days ago and Carey only knew that Cody had saved his twin. She drew him into her embrace as well and held onto both of them as best she could, whispering thanks into Cody's ear and loving words into Zack's.

* * *

It was later in the afternoon, somewhere around five o'clock Zack observed, when there was finally some peace and quiet. He was presently stretched out on the living room floor with his back to the couch, a sub sandwich wrapper lying beside him along with an empty cup. Following the ordeal at school, he'd been really hungry and thirsty and Carey had readily agreed to get the boys whatever they wanted.

Some graduation Zack though bitterly. After all these years he had always dreamed or expected some big party and going out with a bang. Instead on the very day of his graduation from high school he and his brother had been visited by Earth's immortal demi-god protector who had given them a grave warning that the darkness was still quite powerful and then the boys had lost the opportunity to ask him about their dreams and what they could possibly mean.

Then of course Zack had nodded off during Cody's speech and was once again thrust into his nightmarish dream where he had to fight for survival and was almost dragged down to a dark landscape where the power of the light did not reach. The way his family had told it, Carey thought he was just sleeping and elbowed him to get him to wake up and pay attention. Instead Zack had slid sideways out of his chair and fallen into row on top of other people's legs and feet. This caused a slight commotion that would have taken a little while for everyone to notice if Cody hadn't stopped mid sentence when he felt Zack's presence, the minimal light power radiating from him whenever they boys were powered down, leave the room completely. There were a few shouts for a help and then the room got a little chaotic as everyone tried to figure out what was going on, some called or looked for help and others came over offering help.

Fearing the worst, Cody had leapt off the stage and bulldozed his way through the people in his way, borrowing a little bit of his own light power to enhance his strength. Zack was like ice to him in his mind, but Cody had known that he was still alive and started to draw in more light. By the time Cody had reached Zack's unconscious form Carey was hysterical and gently shaking her son and yelling his name to make him wake up. When the younger twin touched his brother, he felt his light power immediately get drained and had to pull back for a second in confusion.

In his next attempt, Cody pulled in enough power that anyone looking closely would see it and he grabbed a hold of Zack resisting the darkness he felt. Cody couldn't see into Zack's dream, but he could feel his brother's presence so weak and far away cut off from the light and so he reached after him with his mind. There was some resistance, but Cody's other title 'The Reclaimer of the Light' proved what it meant that day when he broke through the darkness and dragged Zack back into the light which immediately caused him to awaken.

Now hours after the graduation ceremony and the paramedics checking him over after he'd regained consciousness, Zack was sitting at home with his mind abuzz. It had been a close call today, this was the first time that he hadn't been strong enough to break free and if not for his brother's help…he was afraid of what might happened. He was afraid simply because he didn't know what would even happen if he couldn't wake up. Would he die? Would he be stripped of his powers by some evil force? What was that fountain thing that he had seen before he'd been rescued?

Then Zack was also bummed that on his special night at the completion of his public education he was stuck at home. Some of it was by personal choice, he was worn out and feared a repeat incident without Cody close by to save him, but it was also by his parents command. They didn't want him over exerting himself for the rest of the night and made him promise to relax. Cody had also managed to get their mother alone for a little while and told her what had happened and she asked Cody to stay with Zack to keep an eye on him.

"Boring…" Zack yawned, watching the movie that his father had flipped to while surfing the channels. Kurt gave him a hurt look.

"But it's a classic!"

"Still boring," Zack muttered, feeling himself grow sleepy again with a full stomach.

"You ok Zack?" Cody asked softly from where he was sitting next to Zack, his eyelids were closed against the soft burn of sleep one felt behind their eyes but he was still half awake. He was tired too, having spent several hours a night trading sleep shifts with Zack to make sure that nothing bad happened and also for the fact that he'd been up since the early hours of the morning fretting about making sure that he was ready to deliver his speech.

"I just need some sleep Codes…"

"Go ahead if you want, I'll watch over you," Cody whispered so that their father didn't hear him. As exhausted as Zack felt, he felt even worse seeing his brother so worn out as well and it wouldn't be fair to him to stand guard for several hours when he was on the edge of falling asleep himself.

"No it's ok. You get some sleep, I'll go take a cold shower or something," Zack said, willing himself to stand up.

"Ok, see you in a few…" Just like that Cody's breathing pattern changed to a deep slow rhythm indicating that he was already out like a light. Zack stepped into the bathroom, stripped off all of his clothes being reminded of standing naked against the darkness in his dream, and then got into the shower.

He turned the water on lukewarm and then stood right under the spray of water letting his head thud against the shower wall as water ran through his short blond hair and down his back. It felt exceptionally good for some reason and he closed his eyes and exhaled deeply in satisfaction. The warm water gently caressing his skin seemed to chase away the lingering cold and darkness from his dream and infuse him with energy. The flow of light was so strong in his home that it felt so good and comforting to be near it.

* * *

When Cody had passed out sitting against the couch, he had felt safe in doing so with the quiet buzz of the television reaching his ears and a distant awareness even in his sleep of Zack's light power swelling higher and higher. Then he was suddenly awoken, feeling almost like hours had passed but his head had just hit the pillow. But hours had not passed, just a matter of maybe twenty minutes judging by the movie still playing on the television.

Something was missing, something that had been there when Cody had been lulled to sleep was no longer around and its loss had prompted him to awaken. The television was still on, his dad was still watching it from the couch, nothing seemed out of place until he heard his mother's voice.

"Zack are you ok in there honey?" She asked, knocking on the bathroom door. Ice flooded Cody's veins as realization dawned on him. When Zack had been sitting next to him, he'd been keeping himself powered up by continuously staying tapped into the flow of light around them. Now Cody could no longer sense anything. There was no other light but that of his own. He jumped up from the floor and ran over to the bathroom to join his mother.

"Zack open this door now!" Carey demanded as she jiggled the locked door knob, having not gotten a response from her older twin. She looked wordlessly at Cody as Kurt joined them.

"I'll have to break it mom…"

"Break it!" She commanded and so Cody used his above average strength to slam his fist sideways into the door just next to the handle. There was a loud cracking sound as the door jamb broke and the wood of the door and door frame cracked and broke away. The bathroom door swung up revealing the shower with its curtain drawn open and Zack lying unconscious on the floor with his blue towel wrapped around his waist. It looked like he had just finished drying off and had been getting ready to brush his teeth at the sink when he abruptly fell sideways and ended up rolling over face down onto the linoleum floor.

Cody moved forward even as his mother started crying but she had the presence of mind to stop Kurt from going for the phone. He was confused and really wanted to call for help for his son, but he allowed her to stop him temporarily. They all thought that this was just a repeat incident of earlier.

Just as Cody reached out and touched Zack's shoulders again with both hands, his brother inhaled sharply and he moved his head to look up at him.

"Zack?" Cody inquired as his twin pushed himself up off the floor under his own power.

"I'm alright…" Zack whispered softly, looking at each of his immediate family members in turn.

"What happened? Did you fall into that dream again?" Cody saw the dazed and confused look on his brother's face and his worry increased tenfold. Something bad had happened to him while he was unconscious.

"I…I don't know what happened…"

* * *

Zack awoke…somewhere. The first thing that he noticed was that he was underground, but it was the weirdest thing that he had even seen. The roof seemed to be a mile above him and the rock was embedded with some kind of luminous aquamarine crystal that cast everything in a dim bluish grey light around him. There was a light wall of fog surrounding him.

Only then did Zack realize that he was lying on a stone slab which was set at a forty five degree angle and he was held in place by dark metal bands entrapping his wrists and ankles. He struggled against them and they didn't budge. He searched for the flow of light and found none. Looking in front of him he saw the fountain from his earlier dream. He was in the dark place he'd nearly fallen into earlier. He was trapped!

"Hello Zachary," Came a normal sounding voice, so completely unlike the creepy ghostly voice that had spoken to him earlier. What was also different was that the creepy voice had called him by his title, not his name.

"Who are you?" He asked, looking around for the source of the voice. Then a normal looking young man stepped into view from behind him, he was wearing nothing more ominous than black jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. He had platinum blond hair with streaks of black running through it, accented by his sharp blue eyes.

"I am Jarran Noh'Malkiri," He answered simply.

"That's supposed to mean something?" Zack asked, annoyed by being restrained, having never heard a name like that before.

"It should mean something to you. You and your brother killed Ashani Noh'Malkiri." Alarms went off in Zack's head as he locked eyes with a relative of the Demon Lord. He was reminded of something Taschen had told them two years ago, he'd said that all the immortals of Chaos Realm would physically age to twenty five before they became locked in at that age for as long as they lived. Jarran only looked the same age as Zack though. Then it dawned on him…

Zack was in the Chaos Realm staring in open mouthed shock at none other than Ashani's son. The dark place of his dreams…It was the Chaos Realm. The great dark power Taschen had warned him about at his graduation…It was the Demon Lord's son who was too young for Taschen to realize that he existed.

"Now that's better," Jarran smiled in satisfaction. Smoke seemed to shimmer around his arm and then passed to his hand where a sword made out of dark metal appeared. He was going to execute him here and now, Zack was sure of it.

"My brother and I didn't kill your father," Zack blurted out, trying to think of anything he could say to stop Jarran from killing him. He was also trying to buy time to think of a way to escape, but with his limbs locked down and no light power to draw upon it seemed that escape was hopeless.

"Do tell," Jarran replied, seeming to be intrigued by Zack's contradiction to what he believed to be the truth. The Demon Lord's son closed the distance and stood before him now. He raised the sword and then drew the tip gently across Zack's arm, cutting through the skin and drawing a thin line of blood, but cutting no deeper than that. It was nothing more than a scrape and he didn't even wince at the mild pain.

"Ashani had won, Earth was destroyed, but my brother from the future who survived it all came back in time two years with the soul of my future self attached to him, and together they defeated him while Cody and I lay dying on the street," Zack said in a rush, knowing how preposterous and outlandish it sounded. All through the explanation Jarran had been examining the blood on the tip of his sword thoughtfully. When Zack finished, the blade turned to smoke and rejoined the soul of its master.

"Hmm…that explains much," Jarran said in a serious whisper, more to himself than to Zack, "Thank you for explaining."

"Are you going to kill me?" Zack asked, tired of feeling the fear of death infecting his thoughts. He either wanted to be killed, escape from this place or be tortured. Anything was better than just lying here waiting for the unknown. Jarran spread his arms wide and showed him the palms of his hands.

"What is it about me that makes everyone think I'm going to kill them?" He asked in a slightly amused tone. Zack would have thought that it was obvious.

"You're the son of the Demon Lord…" Jarran nodded, conceding the point.

"No Zachary, I won't kill you yet. It would ruin my fun. If you'll excuse me, time grows short. Your family is about to realize something is wrong and Cody will be coming to your rescue again."

"Then this is just another dream?" Zack asked as Jarran walked toward the fountain.

"This is no dream." He answered without turning around. The son of the Demon Lord seemed to ponder the fountain, which towered over him, for a moment before he walked into the water and disappeared for a moment under a deluge of water.

Zack was starting to feel better now. He wouldn't be killed here and now, and Jarran had said that his family was about to wake him from this place. Cody was going to save him again. Maybe now that Jarran had whatever it was that he wanted, he would leave Zack alone so he could finally get some damn sleep and then after that he would find some way to get a hold of Taschen and tell him all that he had learned.

Jarran soon returned from the fountain, his clothes were soggy and his blond hair was plastered to his head dripping water. He walked back towards Zack, his body becoming surrounded by a bright red and pink aura of energy just like Ashani's had been and then he looked directly at him. In a place where no one else but the Demon Lord's son could hear him, Zack screamed in a tone he had never used before.

There was a flash of red light and then everything went dark.

* * *

**A/N:** Woot, Chapter 5 is a biggun! 5000 words, when most of my chapters are around 2500. But it was worth the wait! Forgive any errors I've made, didn't have time to proofread before going to work. I just wanted to get this chapter out for you all!

Zack and Cody have finally graduated high school! Taschen delivers a warning to them, a warning that Zack finds is all too real when he comes face to face with Jarran. Now we know why Jarran is so powerful, he's Ashani's son. What game is Jarran playing, his fun as he called it, brining Zack briefly to the Chaos Realm and not killing him? Cody asks Zack what happened, but he can't remember? Oh boy...

Find out the answers to these questions and watch as the FBI closes in on Zack and Cody when lies and secrets start flying everywhere in **Chapter 6: Deception**

**PS: **The battle hasn't even begun yet, we're still traveling to get to the base of Mt. Climax. Don't ignore Cody's dreams, Zack's are only half of the puzzle.


	7. Intermission: The Lord Guardian

**Intermission**

**"The Lord Guardian"**

**A/N:** I thought it was time we had one of these to review the story's major events and the new perspective is interesting. Enjoy!

_There's somethin' wrong with the world today  
The light bulb's gettin dim  
There's meltdown in the sky_

_"Livin' On The Edge" by Aerosmith_

Taschen sighed in relief as he fell heavily into his welcoming recliner, grateful to be able to relax for a few moments. While his body might be eternally young, locked in at the age he had been when he brought Ashani crashing back down into the Chaos Realm during the first battle for Earth, his mind was over a thousand years old. There was a lot going on these days with the Earth's population so enormous these days and the growth all across the other light realms and the increasing strength of the dark realms. The only comforting thing he had to think about these days was the fact that the Chaos Realm, strongest of all the dark realms, had lost its teeth with the destruction of its Demon Lord two years ago.

Looking around the room, it was hard to believe that this modest modern house wasn't actually anywhere on the surface of the planet that he guarded against threats that the Champions of Earth, the Children of the Light, could not. It wasn't in a physical place really as it occupied a different plane of existence, some might call it Heaven, where no mortal could reach it. It was from here that Taschen made his plans, watched over the world and rested when he had time. He was an immortal, not a god like Him. Him was the Realm Lord of Earth, though he was more commonly known as God to the people of Earth. Taschen did not know his true name or how he had come into existence, but he served him nonetheless as a Regent having access to some of the Realm Lord's powers in addition to being able to request the use of ones that he did not possess. Him was rarely visited by the Lord Guardian and his true form was unknown as he chose to present himself as various geometric shapes of light to Taschen on those rare occasions that they did meet.

It took a moment for Taschen to realize that his mind was wandering. He needed to focus on the present problem. The problem about that was that he couldn't see the problem. Something strange was going on, he was sure of it, but who or what was behind it he didn't know.

All of the events leading up to today began when Taschen felt something enter the Earth Realm. It was almost undetectable, a mere hiccup among the background noise of the normal activity of the Realm, but he had felt it and it was a rare thing indeed for something to enter the Realm without first requesting permission. Even if it didn't ask for permission to enter, it was normally easily identifiable such as the Chaos Demons when they invaded two years ago to attack the Children. But whatever it was, it was slippery and damn good at hiding from him. That was when the dreams started.

Zachary and Cody Martin, his two most powerful allies and Champions, had started having different but disturbing dreams. Cody was reliving the post apocalyptic future that his future self had survived through, though he should have no knowledge of what had taken place. Then Zack began to feel like he was being stalked in his dreams up to the point of being attacked and even dragged down into the darkness before he could break free. The boys hadn't told Taschen this, he'd seen their dreams as he watched over them. It was his responsibility to protect them from the things that they couldn't fight, such as the influence of other Realm Lord's powers like he had two years ago when Ashani tried killing them before Earth's defenses were truly down enabling him to actually be fully in the Realm and not partially.

As the dreams became worse, Zack and Cody finished their last day of school with a bang. Literally…Taschen felt something become warped in reality, something was changed, moved, created or destroyed but he couldn't tell what it was. He felt it near the twins and before he could act upon his intuition that something bad was about to happen, the room they were in exploded. They had managed to protect themselves with the light, but it was a close call. Whatever had happened, it was not an accident. Someone had tried to murder the Children.

Days moved on and then abruptly and without warning Taschen felt a sudden surge of power distantly, but clearly, and knew it was from the Chaos Realm. The power was so great that it greatly disturbed him. The power was greater than Ashani's had been and equal if not greater to that of the Martin twins. Taschen had appeared at their graduation to warn them and after he had left, Zack was nearly claimed by the darkness with only Cody's quick response saving him from it.

During the days where nothing happened to the twins, Taschen had called upon his gifted Realm Lord powers and created several defensive wards around Zack and Cody's home and immediate areas to protect them from whatever was moving around the Earth Realm undetected. So far that protection had kept them safe from the unknown threat, except for the incident where they had strayed outside of it and had been attacked by a mechanical monster whose origins remained unknown. Even with the protection, the boys still were plagued by their nightmares which confused and frustrated the Lord Guardian even more.

Right now though the boys were safe, driving home from their graduation in the care of both of their parents, the Chaos Realm was quiet and the invisible intruder hadn't done anything for awhile. Taschen felt that he could allow himself some time to think and rest before he set out to find out more information on what was going on. He considered traveling to one of the other light realms, preferably one as old or older than Earth, for some insight but he also realized that if he left now there could be serious consequences as all of his protection would vanish for as long as he was away. Earth was on its own once again, like it was two years ago and over a thousand years ago, to face the darkness on its own for Taschen had no doubt that whatever this invisible threat was, it was from a dark realm that he wasn't aware existed.

Just as he closed his eyes to rest, Taschen suddenly heard silence and felt the protection he'd extended to Zack and Cody stop drawing power from him. He stood up and tried to regain his senses, feeling out for the people of Earth and the Children of the Light, but nothing came to him. It was almost as if he had been cut off from the world he was sworn to protect.

Summoning his Realm Lord powers Taschen attempted to transition to the world and find out what was going on only to be met with failure. He couldn't get to Earth anymore. Panicked, he tried again harder and summoned his full light power to augment his Realm Lord powers and failed again. The Lord Guardian tried for hours to break into the physical Earth Realm unsuccessfully. He couldn't even get a hold of Him. Taschen was boxed in and cut off from everything except the flow of light.

Something bad was happening or about to happen on Earth, that much he was sure of. Drastic times called for drastic measures and Taschen felt out for the last thing he wanted to find. The Chaos Realm was obsessed with trying to conquer Earth, the strongest dark realm seizing control of the strongest light realm would make Chaos an unstoppable force, and subsequently there was always a gateway open in the Chaos Realm probing the defenses of the Earth Realm trying to break through.

Taschen opened a gateway of his own and it connected to the one formed in the Chaos Realm, creating a pathway by which he could cross over completely into the dark realm as well as giving the light an entrance with which it could invade allowing Taschen and Earth's Champions to draw upon it to power their abilities. He was confident that the people of Chaos wouldn't find out about the gateway for some time, and by then he would be able to get through the Chaos Realm and open a new gateway from there into the Earth Realm and then close both of them on his end before anything could get through.

With the gateway swirling open before him, the Lord Guardian powered down and disconnected himself from the flow of light around him. His plan would work a lot better if he were able to move about undetected inside the Chaos Realm, for any Champion of Chaos would easily be able to feel his presence if he came in there guns blazing as it were. That, and Taschen had to remind himself that he would be stepping into the enemy's home territory where they had all of the advantages and their greatest Champions could kill him should they find him.

Taschen stepped across realms into the dark aquamarine light of the Chaos Realm to an empty expanse of rocky hills. There were no Champions and no Demons waiting for him, but with a sudden realization Taschen became aware of something else or rather two somethings in the Chaos Realm that sent a chill down his spine.

The same invisible presence lurking in the Earth Realm was here too, only it wasn't trying to hide as well. It was another dark realm… However, that realization paled in comparison to the surprise waiting for him in a distant part of the realm. There was a powerful being of light trapped here, and then it dawned on Taschen. He had felt this person before…

* * *

**A/N:** Well there you have it. We learn a little bit about Taschen and his thoughts on everything that has been happening. Plus we find out that shortly after he visits Zack and Cody at their graduation, the Earth Realm is suddenly unreachable, almost as if he has been trapped on the outside. When he arrives in the Chaos Realm, he begins to learn who the hidden adversary is (obviously Father Time and his Realm) and discovers that he is not alone in the dark realm.

Dun, dun, dun! Gotta love my cliffhangers, but you'll have to wait for Chapter 7 to have this one solved =)

Chapter 6 is off to a good start and the first scene is now being written. Zack being a real smart ass hehe!

See you all soon!


	8. Deception

**Chapter 6**

**"Deception"**

_I'm walking down the line  
That divides me somewhere in my mind  
On the border line of the edge  
And where I walk alone  
Read between the lines what's  
Fucked up and every things all right  
Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive  
And I walk alone_

_"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day_

It was the morning after their graduation that found the Martin family sitting around the small dining table in Carey's modest apartment having breakfast together. Zack stretched, raising his arms above his head as far as they would go and yawned loudly. He'd been the first to finish eating, almost as if he had been ravenously hungry. Cody couldn't help but be happy for his brother right now, Zack had finally slept a full night without the dream coming to him. He had watched over Zack for a few hours before concluding that it was probably safe to go to sleep as well.

"Feeling better?" Cody asked, setting his fork down as he too finished.

"Much." Zack replied.

"You've been a wreck lately honey, I'm so glad you're feeling better now," Carey chimed in from where she sat across from her older twin. The boy's father silently watched the exchange. Kurt Martin was becoming suspicious, Cody knew this for a fact and his father spoke almost as if he had read his mind.

"So are you going to tell me what's going on?" Silence answered the question, Cody didn't want to tell him the truth and he knew that Zack and their mom didn't want to either. Finally Zack spoke up.

"Nothing's going on." Kurt set his silverware down slightly harder than normal, telegraphing his diminishing patience.

"Don't you lie to me Zachary!" Zack's eyes widened in surprise as a response to his father's anger and then he sneered at him. Cody couldn't believe how disrespectful he was being, but then again maybe Zack was angry at Kurt's probing of their personal lives. Most teenagers hated their parents for that.

"We're having breakfast…nothing else is going on," Zack replied. It was the truth, but Cody detected some sarcasm too. Kurt stood up suddenly, but Carey rose to meet him and quell his anger slightly. When they were done having a whispered argument, they both sat down again.

"Boys, don't you think you should tell your father?" Carey finally asked after a moment had passed.

"We'd rather not, but now there's no use hiding it anymore," Cody muttered regretfully.

"He thinks we're on drugs or something."

"I do not think that mister!" Kurt shot back at Zack's unexpected words. Cody wasn't sure if his brother was trying to lighten the mood or be a smart ass. Zack simply shrugged and looked at him.

It took awhile to explain their outlandish story, especially because Kurt kept asking questions and wasn't really believing Cody's explanation. Finally Zack stood up at his father's latest counter argument.

"Just show him Cody," Zack said simply, crossing his arms over his chest. Cody complied and tapped into the flow of light around him, feeling it rush to fill his body and attempt to overwhelm him with its power before he brought it under control. It sounded a lot worse than it was. Controlling it was child's play. Cody used his mind to direct the light to manifest in his hand as a sphere of golden light, his eyes focused on it as it appeared and took shape.

After that, Kurt Martin started to believe. He now knew that his sons were the most powerful people on Earth and in command of a force so powerful that it could destroy anyone and anything from the dark realms that got in their way.

* * *

The soft patter of the rain outside was an intoxicating sound. Cody loved the rain even though most people didn't. He was the kind of person who would just crack a smile if he were caught outside when it started to pour, knowing that the power of nature was beyond anyone's control, before making his way under some cover. He was presently looking out of his bedroom window at the distant skyline of downtown Boston, shrouded in dim grey light and the downpour of rain.

Cody had the strangest sense that the large buildings in the distance looked wrong somehow. He wasn't sure if his mind was playing trick on him or not, mixing his dreams with reality under the cover of the storm. It looked like the windows of the skyscrapers were blown out, chunks of metal were missing from the sides and some seemed to have had several floors off the top obliterated. Shaking his head to clear his vision Cody saw that the damage was still there. But it couldn't be…Anything attempting to destroy them would surely show up on the news as well as sending up a flare announcing its presence to the keen senses of the Children.

Max lived down in that direction Cody remembered, turning away from the window and grabbing his cell phone off his bedside table where it was charging. He hit the speed dial for his fellow Child of the Light and waited sitting on the edge of his bed staring out the window.

"Hi Cody," Max's voice seemed cheery as she finally picked up. Cody was relieved to hear it, he truthfully hadn't thought about her much lately with Zack's problems and all the weird stuff going on around her.

"Hey Max. I just wanted to see if you were alright because there's been a lot of weird stuff going on lately. Our kind of weird if you know what I mean," Cody explained, swearing that the distant buildings looked whole and complete now.

"Yeah I'm ok, nothing has happened to me. How's Zack doing?" She had obviously heard about Zack's collapse at the school the day before.

"He's fine, though I think he could use some fun to cheer up him," Cody said, suddenly thinking of an idea. He hadn't really had a chance to spend some time with Barbara after graduation due to Zack's dream.

"Oh? What did you have in mind?"

"How about a double date? Dinner and a movie?"

"Sounds good, when? Tomorrow?"

"Sure, I've just got to ask Barbara and tell Zack about it. I know he'll come, he wants out of the house for awhile," Cody replied with a chuckle and then frowning as he saw the damage buildings reappear, "Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you look out your window? Do you see anything strange downtown?"

"No. Should I see something?" She asked after a moment's pause.

"I don't know, I think my mind is playing tricks on me," Cody replied, knowing that he was in fact seeing something, but he didn't want to needlessly worry her.

"Well get some rest then Cody. Call me back with the plan later."

"Will do, bye Max."

"Later Cody."

Cody snapped his phone shut and tossed it on the end of his bed. The buildings were really bothering him. Maybe he should see if Zack could see it too? He stood up and walked out into the hallway, knocking softly on the door frame of his brother's room even though he left the door wide open.

"What's up?" Zack asked, looking up from the magazine he was reading. He was lying on his bed, back propped up against the wall, dressed like he was about to go out except that he didn't have shoes on. Cody was more dumbstruck that Zack was actually reading when there was plenty of other things to be doing, like video games, internet surfing or watching television. His brother was reading the newest edition of Time Magazine. Then again, Zack had done stranger things since he unlocked his powers two years ago and started becoming a high GPA student.

"Something downtown is bugging me, wanna check it out?" Zack glanced out the window at the downpour which had lost some of its intensity.

"You want to go out in that?" He asked, returning to his magazine and flipping a page.

"It's only a block to the subway and I don't intend to stay long. Just have a look around." Cody tried to convince him to come along.

"Disgusting…" Zack said unexpectedly.

"Excuse me?" What was wrong with going out in the rain?

"These people…" Zack answered, gesturing at a page in his magazine before setting it down on the bed next to him and turning it upside down so Cody could read the headline about a Senator abusing his power and getting away with it, "How can this world operate with its leaders abusing power left and right? Aren't they elected to speak on behalf of the people and do what's in their best interests?" Cody smiled at this. Zack was smart, but it was rare that he posed a question like this to him and talked to him in such an educated manner.

"They're only human. That's also why we didn't have our powers until Ashani invaded, they served no purpose until then and Taschen taught us that lesson about power corrupting people. Only when the threat our powers were designed to fight appeared, did we get the ability to control them. It kept us from becoming corrupt, like these people who use power just because they have it." Zack looked at Cody thoughtfully for a moment, almost like Cody had said something really groundbreaking to him and had given him much to think about.

"So where are we going again?" Zack asked, not bothering to respond to Cody's short speech as he picked up the magazine and set it off on his bed stand.

"Just downtown for a few minutes. I've also got some fun planned for tomorrow. I'll tell you about it on the way."

* * *

Several minutes after the boys had left to catch the downtown subway train FBI Special Agent Marissa Evans arrived at the apartment that they had just vacated completely unaware that her quarry had just slipped through her fingers. Every shred of evidence and personal account from two years ago added to the recent happenings had led her here.

With so much to go on it was quite easy to start drawing up a short list of probable suspects and start eliminating them until she was left with only two. Agent Evans knew she was looking for two young people, between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, from the distorted footage on the cameras that had caught part of the chaos that had destroyed an entire block of downtown Boston.

Zachary and Cody Martin were twins of just the right age for her search criteria. They had been the only people of the right age living permanently at the Tipton Hotel, which had been the epicenter of the destruction, and had gone to the same high school where the explosion occurred in the chemistry lab. The explosion and then the imprint of two bodies on perfectly preserved tile floor where the rest of the room was charred black raised more eyebrows. After that she had had agents watching the school for anything out of the ordinary. Then Zack had passed out during graduation, but even before a cry of alarm was raised, the valedictorian giving his speech was leaping off the stage running to his aid. It was Cody of course.

With all of the evidence, personal accounts and observations piling up, especially after they found the remains of a mechanical 'something' in the skate park frequented by the twins who were rumored to have been there when it happened, she thought it high time to question them. She should have had agents watching them at all times, but she hadn't thought it was necessary. For all accounts and purposes the twin brothers seemed like normal and well behaved teenagers. They had an extremely low flight risk.

A woman fitting the description of the boy's mother answered the door. It could only be Carey Martin. Just behind her was a tall and decently built man with short curly black hair.

"Hello," Carey said simply, looking at the Agent standing in the hallway filled with doors leading to other apartments.

"Yes hello Ma'am. I'm Agent Marissa Evans with the FBI," she said holding up her identity so that both parents could read it, "I just wanted to ask your sons some questions about the events that took place at the Tipton two years ago." Marissa saw the deep concern, fear of discovery and more pass through their facial expressions. They knew something more about what had happened than was in the official story. They were like cornered animals, and their unsteady voices showed it. Agent Evans felt the swell of victory rise up in her.

"They're not here right now," the man, probably Kurt Martin the boy's father and Carey's ex husband, answered finally. Had they known that she was coming to question them and fled? No, that sounded stupid to Evans. They were teenage boys, they were probably out somewhere having fun rather than sitting around the house with their parents.

"Do you know where they went or when they'll be back? It's important that I speak with them." She added, trying to put them at ease and which would make them a little more cooperative she hoped.

"They took the subway downtown, said they were going to the mall for a couple of hours," Kurt answered again since Carey couldn't seem to bring herself to.

"Thank you," Agent Evans said, exchanging a few last words with them and assuring them that their sons weren't in any trouble with the law before departing. She got into her government car and put in a call for the agents on her team to meet her downtown.

* * *

"Seems normal enough," Zack was saying as he and Cody stepped inside out of the rain after having looked around the area for a few minutes. Cody guessed that his mind had just been playing tricks on him since his fellow Children both hadn't seen anything strange.

The mall wasn't crowded by any standard even though it wasn't that late. It was just a sign of the weak economy, people didn't have the money to come out and buy frivolous overpriced things. Cody led them to the food court where they would grab a bite to eat rather than suffer their mother's cooking that night. Zack approved of this, especially since Cody had offered to pay.

Cody had been putting all of his doubts to the side lately. He knew deep down that everything was wrong. For the first time in his life he no longer felt like someone was watching over him, it was Taschen of course, so where had he gone? Then he knew that his eyes had seen something the other two Children couldn't see, the world was turning into the nightmarish landscape of Future Cody's reality and then back to normal. But most disturbing of all was his brother.

Ever since recovering from the dream that he claimed he couldn't remember in the bathroom, which Cody knew was a lie, Zack had been acting different. Not very different, or their parents would have noticed, but Cody who knew Zack better than anyone else did could pick up on these little things. The heavens, the world and his brother were all wrong, and he was the only one who seemed to have noticed this change.

"Are you going to order?" Zack asked with a slap to Cody's shoulder, nodding his head to the cashier where they were now at the front of the line, knocking him out of his thoughts.

"Err…yeah sorry," Cody apologized and ordered his food. Moments later the twins were seated at a table finishing their dinner looking around them at everyone else. Cody liked to people watch and Zack was interested in it too it seemed. The brothers didn't speak, they had nothing else important to say. Zack had already readily agreed to the double date when Cody told him about it on the subway ride over.

Warm, full and comfortable, Cody felt sleep tugging at him and he surpressed a yawn. He was looking out towards the side entrance to the mall and through its big panes of glass, not understanding what he was looking at for the longest time. Then it dawned on him with icy clarity. The world outside was changing again, and the change was sweeping this way.

Cody stood so suddenly and with such force that he knocked over the table and sent his chair sliding into the table behind him. Zack was also on his feet, watching the change approach them. The building across the street from the mall grew dark, its lights went out, intact windows morphed into shattered panes and the fresh paint turned into a blackened mess. Cracks appeared in the road and then the sidewalk, approaching the mall entrance. The brilliant white light of the mall seemed to dim sympathetically in response to the pitch blackness that the city was being cast into.

Then the door exploded inward as chunks of the sidewalk were thrown into the air. From this haze of dust particles emerged several of the machines with multiple appendages and misshapen hunks of rock with what seemed like two arms and two legs. Cody had no idea what was going on, but he sensed the danger. He tapped into the light and drew upon its power.

"Sentinels…" Zack hissed at the machines as they made a bee line for him. He rolled out of the way as Cody reached his maximum potential. As he dodged out of the way of the onrushing rock golems, his gold and black armor wrapped around him and Excalibur and his shield formed in his hands.

Cody lept up and slammed Excalibur into the back of a golem that had taken a swipe at him and missed. The sword went right through it and sent massive cracks running through its body. With a simple roundhouse kick following up as he fell back to the ground, the golem became rubble. He was surprised at how easy these things were to destroy.

The remaining half dozen golems charged him and Cody rotated his shield onto his forearm to free his left hand. He pulled in more light and used his hand to focus and direct half a dozen lances of bright golden light. All six beams slammed into the golems and shattered them as easily as Excalibur had the first.

Cody turned to the machines, expecting to see Zack in combat with them if he hadn't already taken out a few of them and was shocked and horrified by what he saw. His brother was down, lying on his back shirt ripped from several near misses, with a bright red slash across the side of his face.

There was no light coming from Zack, no white and gold armor protecting him and Excalibur's cousin Fortitude was nowhere to be seen. The machines were closing in on him, their arms raising to impale him. Cody wasted no time and ran in front of Zack, deflecting the blows with his shield, Excalibur and his own body. With the worst of the hits absorbed, the final one punched Cody square in his chest plate and sent him sprawling next to his bloodied and beaten brother.

He'd been hit far worse however and Cody was back on his feet in a heartbeat. The Truth Seeker was starting to see red tinting the edges of his vision and he became so completely focused on the threat. Cody was losing control to his rage, and this was one of the times that he gave himself up to it rather than fight it.

The next moment was a blur as Cody hacked and slashed with Excalibur, shredding the machines to ribbons as he deftly dodged their attacks. Tables, chairs and everything else went flying everywhere smashing store windows and signs. It seemed that just as the battle had started, it was suddenly over. All that was left were piles of rubble and metal where the things that had attacked him had been destroyed.

Cody was still enraged and he bent over to pick Zack up by his shirt, the fabric stretching and snapping in protest. His brother's expression was hard to read. There was hate in his eyes, but also relief and gratitude.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Cody cursed at him, holding Zack an inch or two off the floor, "Why didn't you fight?"

"Cody…you saved me," Zack said, his voice carrying with it the surprise and gratitude that Cody had seen in his eyes seconds ago. He felt the rage inside of him ebbing away, but it wasn't quite gone yet.

"Where is your armor, where is your weapon, where were your powers?" Cody demanded.

"Cody…I…" He set his brother back on his feet.

"Summon them now!" Cody commanded in a thundering yell.

"I CAN'T!" Zack thundered back. Cody's rage vanished and his heart fell. The golden armor vanished in a flash of light and Excalibur retreated back into his soul. So that was it…That was the big secret he was hiding from Cody… Zack had lost his powers…

Everything that Cody felt was wrong in the world was coming to bear upon him. Things were changing in the city and Zack was powerless. Only one feeling remained unexplained, Taschen's presence was gone from the world.

Unexpectedly the mall returned to normal with no sign that there had ever been a fight there. People who had panicked and ran away suddenly reappeared alongside repaired stores. Outside cars passed along the road normally and the buildings beyond were whole and lit with electricity.

What the hell was going on? Cody felt like everything around him was becoming suffocated by a web of lies, deceit and deception. Everyone and everything had secrets trying to hide from him. Nothing was normal anymore. Suddenly a gentle hand fell on his shoulder from behind. There were several normal looking adults behind him.

"Agent Marissa Evans," the woman touching him introduced herself, flashing her FBI identity briefly, "We need you both to come with us and answer some questions."

Cody had no choice but to come with them. He moved like a zombie, the world and its distractions passing by him in a blur. Two thoughts kept assaulting his mind which was so jammed it couldn't process information any longer.

There was a new enemy trying to destroy them and their world and…

Zack had lost his powers…

* * *

**A/N:** Zack's been acting a little weird lately, Cody is starting to see the world changing around him for the worse and then both are attacked by Father Time's minions. The Earth's defenses must be weak indeed for Time to be able to start attacking and with Taschen gone from the Realm and Zack now powerless only Cody and Max stand against Father Time. On top of that, the FBI has closed in on our hero's and taken them in for questioning.

What's going to happen? Will Taschen make it out of the Chaos Realm? Who is there with him? Why is Zack powerless? What is Cody really seeing? Will Time try another attack? What will the FBI learn and do from here? Will Zack and Cody still be able to go on their double date with the girls?

Find out this and more in **Chapter 7: The Chaos Realm**

Please review, love hearing from you all!

See you later!


	9. The Chaos Realm

**Chapter 7**

**The Chaos Realm**

_When you see my face,  
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell.  
When you walk my way,  
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell._

_"Gives You Hell" by The All-American Rejects_

**_Intrepid: Not trembling or shaking with fear; fearless; bold; brave; undaunted; courageous; as, an intrepid soldier; intrepid spirit._**

**_Valkyrie: One of the maidens of Odin, represented as awful and beautiful, who presided over battle and marked out those who were to be slain._**

"I'm not answering any questions without an attorney present," Cody said defiantly as he crossed his arms and made himself as comfortable as one can sitting in a cheap brown metal folding chair. He and Zack had been taken into the security office of the mall by FBI Agent Evans and some of her team for questioning. Cody wasn't in any mood to deal with this right now and was consequently being very difficult. His mind was still spinning over what had just happened. There was a new evil encroaching on them and Zack for whatever reason couldn't tap into the light rendering him powerless. Zack sat beside Cody, mirroring his brother's defiant look but with a hint of the look of a cornered animal in his eyes. Despite all of the damage of the previous battle in the food court mending itself, Zack still retained the horizontal slash across his cheek where a machine had sideswiped him and his shirt had a few tears in it from near misses. Cody also continued to feel a dull throbbing pain in his chest where he had taken a massive blow intended for his brother.

"And so you won't," Agent Evans said smugly, dropping a manila folder on her side of the table where she sat opposite the twins, "I just want to do a little show and tell with you guys." The brothers watched apprehensively as she pulled out a small stack of papers stapled together and several dozen large print photographs.

"In early September two years ago something happened in downtown Boston that has never been fully explained. We know something happened, but we don't exactly know what it was," Agent Evans started, sliding several pictures across the table showing the damage done to the Tipton Hotel and the surrounding buildings, "What we do know is that whatever happened, inflicted severe damage in a major metropolitan city and no one was ever held accountable for the crime. We also know that there were some things beyond normal occurring and while normally the FBI is skeptical of such radical tales, the evidence is real and we have determined that none of it was fabricated to lead our investigation astray."

"Evidence?" Cody inquired, wondering what the government had. Just how close were they to finding out about him and his brother? How much longer could they go on without anyone knowing what they truly were? Evans smiled softly at his interest which Cody took to mean that she assumed, and rightly so, that he knew something she didn't.

"Two very real, very dead dragons," She answered in a tone that told them it was no joke. Evans proved this by sliding across more photographs, one of the pictures showed the dragon that Future Cody had killed high above the streets now resting in the crater where it had fallen and the other one was half buried in the building front that it had plowed into after Future Zack had swiftly dispatched with it. "Both were killed in roughly the same spot, stabbed through the head, by two different weapons. The weapons are believed to be swords, the wounds are so cleanly made, but something powerful had to be behind them in order to piece the scales on the creatures' heads which are bulletproof against lower caliber or slow traveling rounds like the 9mm and 7.62mm, with the 5.56mm barely penetrating with enough momentum to do any damage. Then there's the whole issue of the skull bone, but we won't get into that right now."

"Dragons? Really? Is this the script for the latest B movie?" Cody asked, trying to mask the nervousness in his voice with sarcasm. Evans just glared at him before throwing down more photographs which looked to be stills from security camera footage, all of them containing Future Zack or Future Cody or both of them together fully powered up in their armor and radiating light from their protective auras. It was impossible to distinguish their features with the less than stellar quality of the cameras and the distortion caused by their light, but it was clear to the naked eye that there were definitely two young men in armor and glowing. That alone would raise eyebrows.

"Two people, we simply call them Gold and White, as you can see them glowing brightly and dressed in armor of the same color. We have no explanation for this phenomenon, but we know that they were involved nonetheless," the Agent continued and then threw down a picture of the chemistry lab that had exploded on the twin's last day of school. Cody bit his lip and fought hard to keep from exclaiming his surprise as he looked at a picture of the charred floor where the shape of a person, or rather two persons, were perfectly preserved in undamaged white tile cutouts amid the destruction. It was where he and Zack and lain, protected by their shielding light, as the explosion washed over them.

"Then we have this at your school on your last day before graduation and the funny thing is that your teacher places you in or around the lab at the time of the accident Cody Martin. As for your brother, several people we interviewed about you being there said that Zack was your ride home and would normally meet up with you at your final class since you liked to take your time leaving."

"Your point?" Zack said in his most smart ass tone while rolling his eyes and sighing in frustration.

"My point gentlemen is this. Two young men defied explanation outside the Tipton hotel where you two lived just before the destruction, two different weapons were used to kill dragons and two people that defied all the laws of nature and survived an inferno hot enough to turn metal into molten puddles. The FBI can connect weird events pretty well. We know that you were two were either involved in all of the strange incidents, perhaps even the people in the pictures, or you know something about it. All the evidence, of which I've only showed you a fraction of and all of the first hand accounts of people like the ones who place you in the skate park at the time this was found," She dropped a final picture of the machine that had attacked the boys a few days earlier on the table without pausing, "…is pointing fingers in your direction. Care to explain?"

"I have no idea what happened and I won't answer any questions without an attorney," Cody repeated himself, spreading his arms in a helpless gesture. He knew all about his rights, the laws these government agents were bound to follow and on top of that he gained confidence knowing that he was like a god compared to these people. They couldn't do anything to him or Zack.

"Very well Mr. Martin. You're free to go and in the meantime we'll be getting you your attorney, a warrant for questioning and a search warrant for both of your persons, property and dwelling." Agent Evans said in a casual manner as she picked up all of the photos and returned them to the folder. Cody's mouth dropped open in surprise and protest.

"You can't do that!"

"You two are prime suspects right now, and you can rest assured we'll get those warrants by tomorrow morning. See you then gentlemen."

* * *

The subway train roared softly as it sped along its tracks and rocked gently making Cody sway slightly where he was standing holding onto a pole. Zack was sitting in front of him staring out the window. They hadn't spoken since leaving the mall.

"Zack…What do you mean you can't summon your powers?" Cody asked tentatively, wondering if his brother would snap on him again and start shouting. Zack looked up at him, his expression unreadable even for his twin who knew him better than anyone.

"I mean I can't," He answered, holding out a hand palm up and looking at it intently as though he meant to summon a sphere of light.

"Zack…" Cody began, but his brother cut him off.

"What do you want from me Cody? I have no fucking idea. Stop asking me the same question that I don't have an answer for."

"Sorry…I'm just worried about you bro," Cody muttered, slightly stung by Zack's attitude but then again who wouldn't be on edge if they suddenly found themselves powerless against a mighty enemy intent on killing them? More minutes passed in silence between the brothers as the train rapidly neared their stop.

"What did you call those things at the mall?" Cody asked, remembering when the machine like things had burst through the side entrance and came after them.

"I didn't call them anything," Zack said flatly.

"Yes you did," Cody argued, thinking back to the food court at the mall.

_The brilliant white light of the mall seemed to dim sympathetically in response to the pitch blackness that the city was being cast into._

_ Then the door exploded inward as chunks of the sidewalk were thrown into the air. From this haze of dust particles emerged several of the machines with multiple appendages and misshapen hunks of rock with what seemed like two arms and two legs. Cody had no idea what was going on, but he sensed the danger. He tapped into the light and drew upon its power._

_ "Sentinels…" Zack hissed at the machines as they made a bee line for him. He rolled out of the way as Cody reached his maximum potential. As he dodged out of the way of the onrushing rock golems, his gold and black armor wrapped around him and Excalibur and his shield formed in his hands. _

Zack shrugged helplessly when Cody told him what he remembered. So the machines were called Sentinels, but how had Zack known that? Zack had lied to him when he said that he hadn't called them anything and again just now when he couldn't offer up an explanation for how he knew this.

Cody stared at his brother, meeting Zack's eyes which held a dangerous look warning him not to probe any further. Even powerless as he was now Zack was making Cody feel uncomfortable, almost bordering on fear of his twin. There was something he wasn't telling Cody and ever since he'd collapsed in the bathroom and fallen into another dream he had felt different. Whenever Cody thought of Zack now, he wasn't reminded of all the good and special times they had shared, not even just recently when they had been almost racked out side by side watching a movie with their dad after graduation.

The world had warped into destruction, almost like this timeline had been rewritten and the world returned to the state it had been left in Future Cody's timeline before returning to normal. That would explain Cody's dreams of the apocalyptic future he'd been having of late, perhaps they were a warning of things to come? Were the golems and sentinels linked to the power behind the temporary shift in reality Cody had seen? Where was Taschen at anyway? Cody had never actually felt the Lord Guardian's presence in the world around him when he wasn't manifested in his body, but now that he had gone there was a gaping void in the power of the light around him.

He was still just as powerful without Taschen around, but Cody could feel the world around him turning cold and growing darker. Whatever the Lord Guardian had said about Earth's magical defenses at the graduation ceremony being fairly strong was no longer valid. The world's defenses were rapidly weakening and were on the verge of failure, that much he was sure of.

Why was Zack powerless? What had happened to him in his dream? Why was he lying to Cody? How could they fight an enemy that was invisible to them and struck without any warning? How could Cody fight when he didn't even trust his own twin brother?

* * *

Taschen simply could have opened a gateway back to the Earth Realm and joined up with his fellow Children of Light, but he didn't do that. He couldn't. There was a powerful presence of light trapped in the Chaos Realm very close to him. Someone was here and until Taschen had opened the gateway to come here, they had been powerless here where the light did not normally penetrate. That person was only now starting to discover that the light was spilling into the dark realm from the gateway.

Try as he might, the Lord Guardian simply couldn't mask his power. He wasn't a Realm Lord, but he did have access to some of those powers and they might as well have sent up fireworks announcing his arrival. He had to get to the other person like him before it was too late…

"Lord Guardian Taschen. You should have called and told us you were coming!" A woman's voice said from behind him. He spun around in surprise, the woman's presence masked by the darkness that was all around him. It was a Champion of Chaos, the opposite numbers of the Children of Light in the Earth Realm. More than that, it was none other than Lady Pandora who was said to be one of the oldest, wisest and strongest of the Champions.

Taschen barely had time to power up, his red and gold armor wrapping around him, shield forming over his left forearm and his own magical sword Intrepid springing into existence in his right hand before she was on him. Pandora slammed into him like a freight train as she descended from the air, sending him crashing onto his back. Though both of them were immortal, they could still both be killed in battle and if he didn't find a way out of this one of them would be dead soon.

He rolled sideways as a blast of negative energy scorched the ground where he had just been and leapt up to his feet just in time for Intrepid to parry her Valkyrie sword and then his shield bounced against hers as she tried to bash him with it. Enough was enough. Taschen pulled in light and expanded his aura rapidly and violently, displacing the air around him in a sonic boom noise and kicking up enough of the rocky ground beneath him to push Pandora back a few feet. He lunged forward, sword arm cocked back ready to deliver a killing thrust while she was still off balance from his little trick, only to get kicked in the stomach as she dropped to the ground and used her feet to flip him over her.

Taschen flipped over onto all fours and barely had time to block several lances of negative energy that she sent his way, the neon red and purple light etching after images in his vision. He sent back several lances of golden light only for her to slap them aside so that they exploded upon the ground beside her. She was tough, tougher than him he realized.

"So I take it you're the new Demon Lord?" Taschen asked as they temporarily paused their fight and started circling each other. He was stalling partly for time to work out a plan of escape and partly because he was curious on what had occurred in the Chaos Realm following the battle two years ago where Ashani had fallen to Future Zack and Cody's sacrifices.

"No, but I have trained the new one well. He is extremely powerful and we spar often to keep in shape. You Lord Guardian are out of practice," Pandora said mockingly, flicking her beautiful platinum blond hair over her pitch black shoulder pauldron. So there was a new Demon Lord, but this confused Taschen. Technically as a close relative to Ashani and as old and powerful as she was, Pandora was supposed to inherit the position. He wondered who it was who had taken Ashani's place.

"Where is he then? You would think the Demon Lord would want to confront the first ever intrusion of the light into his realm," He continued, buying himself time while he pinpointed the location of the other light presence somewhere behind him.

"Lord Jarran is out for the afternoon, but you can leave a message with me if you like," Pandora said with a devilish grin. That also sent up alarms in Taschen's mind. Here he was away from his realm at the same time as the Demon Lord was away from his own, leaving his most powerful Champion to meet the intruder in battle. Taschen had also never heard of the name before, and he knew the names of all the powerful Champions having fought them thousands of years ago and knowing which ones had claim to Ashani's position should he fall in battle. Jarran was not among those names. This meant that either Taschen simply hadn't known he existed, or that he had been born after the first battle between Earth and Chaos. Pandora was a blood relative of Ashani and had the strongest claim back then…that could only mean Jarran was also a relation. Could this Jarran be Ashani's son? He doubted it, since the old Demon Lord despised the idea of having children of his own who might attempt to usurp his power, but what other explanation was there?

"You're trying to save him aren't you?" Pandora asked unexpectedly, studying him with her brilliant green eyes.

"Who?" Taschen asked stupidly.

"Him," Pandora answered, pointing with her left hand in the direction of the other light presence, "But that doesn't really explain why you are here, there's no way you could have known he was here."

"Err…" He didn't know what to say. Pandora, unlike Ashani, was highly observant, analytical and thought things through. She had seen everything he was thinking simply by relying on her thought process. If she had truly trained the new Demon Lord, then the Children of Light would be in serious trouble if they were ever to meet him in battle. A hotheaded power hungry maniacal Demon Lord was highly preferable to a calm, intelligent and calculating one any day.

"Lord Jarran would not like you spoiling his fun," Pandora stated, twirling her Valkyrie sword in her hand in a deft display of her swordsmanship as she grew impatient with the small talk. Taschen had a million questions on his mind, but he forced himself to focus on getting out of here alive with the other light person. He pulled in more light, almost too much for him to handle and directed it to manifest between them just as he turned away from Pandora.

"Too bad…" Taschen said, letting the light appear and explode just as he took off flying away from the center of the explosion. Pandora had made a move to come after him when she sensed that he was up to something, but the last Taschen saw of her was her hunkering down and shielding herself with her actual shield augmented by a wall of negative energy. He had bought himself maybe thirty seconds and he made the best of it, racing to the other presence.

Within moments Taschen arrived at a gray landscape where there was an oversized fountain recycling water from its base to the top where it came cascading down in a wall of water. Just off to the side was an inclined table, or maybe it was a bed, complete with arm and leg restraints to keep the captive from escaping. Taschen felt the light flowing through this person, but he was unconscious and unaware that he now had the power to escape.

Taschen landed beside the captive and flicked his sword with his wrist expertly cutting the restraints with the tip of his blade. He concentrated for a moment and opened a gateway back to the Earth Realm and went to pick up the captive. It was only then that he got a good look at his face, and the Lord Guardian gasped in surprise.

* * *

He was reliving an event from almost two days ago…

Zack was dreaming again…

_"No Zachary, I won't kill you yet. It would ruin my fun. If you'll excuse me, time grows short. Your family is about to realize something is wrong and Cody will be coming to your rescue again." _

_ "Then this is just another dream?" Zack asked as Jarran walked toward the fountain._

_ "This is no dream." He answered without turning around. The son of the Demon Lord seemed to ponder the fountain, which towered over him, for a moment before he walked into the water and disappeared for a moment under a deluge of water. _

_ Zack was starting to feel better now. He wouldn't be killed here and now, and Jarran had said that his family was about to wake him from this place. Cody was going to save him again. Maybe now that Jarran had whatever it was that he wanted, he would leave Zack alone so he could finally get some damn sleep and then after that he would find some way to get a hold of Taschen and tell him all that he had learned._

_ Jarran soon returned from the fountain, his clothes were soggy and his blond hair was plastered to his head dripping water. He walked back towards Zack, his body becoming surrounded by a bright red and pink aura of energy just like Ashani's had been and then he looked directly at him. In a place where no one else but the Demon Lord's son could hear him, Zack screamed in a tone he had never used before._

_ Zack looked on in horror as a mirror image of himself approached him. It was dressed in Jarran's clothes, but it looked just like him. It had the same blond hair, blue green eyes, freckles around the nose and birthmarks on the face. With a wave of his hand, the mirror image and Zack become covered by dark smoke for a split second and then Zack felt Jarran's wet clothes around him. The mirror image, or rather Jarran, was now wearing the bath towel Zack had used to dry off before collapsing in the bathroom._

_ "This should be fun," Jarran said in Zack's voice before he approached him and reached out to touch Zack's chest and closed his eyes. _

_ He had the oddest sensation that Jarran suddenly vanished…_

_ There was a flash of red light and then everything went dark. _

_

* * *

_**A/N:** Draw your own conclusions in the reviews. The cat's out of the bag so I'm not going to say anything =)

I cut Chapter 7 short because I felt that the rest of the parts just didn't fit as well as it would if I separated them into more chapters. I'll probably be able to put up one more chapter this weekend if I get more time to write. I'm also thinking about rewriting / rearranging the prologue a little bit to make it a smoother entrance into the story.

Thanks for reading everyone. See you in **Chapter 8: Confrontation** as we continue climbing up the steep slope of Mt. Climax.

**P.S.** What's your favorite line? Mine would be this one – _'How could Cody fight when he didn't even trust his own twin brother?'_ – Very ominous! =)


	10. Confrontation

**Chapter 8**

**"Confrontation" **

**A/N: New Prologue Up! **

**Hopefully this will attract more readers since it's a little more intense than the old one!  
**

_Where have all good men gone  
And where are all the gods?  
Where's the street-wise Hercules  
To fight the rising odds?  
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?  
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need  
I need a hero  
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night  
He's gotta be strong  
And he's gotta be fast  
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight  
I need a hero  
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light  
He's gotta be sure  
And it's gotta be soon  
And he's gotta be larger than life_

_"Holding Out For a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler_

"I can't believe this…" Max said in awe as the two pairs of couples arrived at the movie theater for their double date. Cody scanned the area and was also surprised by how many people had shown up to the theater on the night after the opening of the newest Transformers movie. He hadn't expected such a crowd, in fact until they looked up show times Cody had forgotten about the movie which he and Zack had been looking forward to go to. All the dreams, unknown attackers and warped time had driven it from his mind.

Cody had slept most of the day after having been up most of the night standing vigil over Boston. It had been a long and cold night as he stood atop one of the highest buildings in the city, the top of which was nearly in the low clouds, letting the power of the light use him as a conduit to spill its energy into the world. He was deeply worried about Earth's defenses and at night when the sun wasn't out they were at their weakest ever. He would never know what results this had had in the city, but for the most part people could feel it. People were more relaxed and fun loving. There was no crime that night, no broken hearts, children and spouses were given gifts and showered with love and everyone who did sleep slept soundly and undisturbed. Zack had been watching him from his open bedroom window from a ways away for what seemed like several hours before going to sleep himself.

"What do you guys want to do? They're sold out of this showing and the next one. There's nothing until ten o'clock," Barbara brought Cody back to the present with that bit of information. Despite all that was going on, Cody just wanted to kick back and enjoy a good movie for a little while and he was frustrated by being cheated like this.

"We could see another?" Zack suggested, looking at several movie posters encased in glass frames lining the outside wall of the theater for something interesting.

* * *

"Zachary! Wake up!"

Zack started coming around, slowly waking up from his dreamless sleep and his head started to spin. The first thing he felt was hunger. He hadn't eaten anything for two days or drank anything for that matter. His lips were chapped and his throat was dry. Every breath he took was painful.

He moaned softly, wanting to be left alone so he could rest and at the same time wanting to wake up so that he could eat and drink something. After a moment he also became aware of the pounding in his head.

"Zack!" The voice above him said more insistently. He opened his eyes and looked around at the blurry images above him. It took a moment for them to focus and see Taschen the Lord Guardian kneeling over him. The immortal's appearance struck Zack as odd, for he had never seen him in normal clothes before. Then the importance of Taschen's presence struck him.

"Where…?" Zack started to ask in a raspy voice.

"You're safe now Zack, we're back in the Earth Realm," Taschen answered, helping him sit up slowly. Zack noticed that he was still wearing Jarran's black t-shirt and jeans and this cleared any doubts he had about whether or not the last two days had really happened or not. Jarran had stolen his identity, essentially making himself Zack's evil twin, and hadn't been seen since. Could that mean…? Was it possible that the Demon Lord's son had taken his place on Earth? The implications of that possibility suddenly struck him like a lightning bolt.

"Cody, Mom, Dad, they're all in danger!" He pushed himself to his feet with a newfound energy trying hard not to stumble. Taschen helped Zack stand and offered him his shoulder to lean on which Zack gratefully accepted as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

"Zack, what are you talking about?"

"Jarran changed himself to look like me. I think he's here impersonating me," Zack gasped in a hurry, looking around to try and get his bearings. Everything around him was ruined. There were burnt out cars, rubble in the streets and buildings with their windows blown out and walls smashed in.

"Ashani's son?" Taschen asked in surprise.

"Oh god…has it started already?" Zack asked, concern for his brother momentarily forgotten as he took in the destruction around him.

"No, we're at your old home." Sure enough when he looked around more closely in the fading evening light Zack spotted the battered Tipton Hotel standing just down the street from him.

"Let's get moving, we need to find your brother," Taschen urged him as he started walking towards the apartment where the Martins now lived.

"Can you fight Jarran if we meet him?"

"If he truly has inherited his father's powers as the Demon Lord, then no I cannot. We are forbidden from fighting each other by ancient laws. I can intervene to protect the Children, nothing more."

"That's a comforting thought," Zack said sarcastically as they approached the fence encircling the destroyed area, spotting civilization beyond it, "I'm not in any shape to fight another Demon Lord."

"Let's hope that we don't have to fight him. There's a gateway open between both realms that I am currently cut off from and while it allowed the light to penetrate into the Chaos Realm it also is allowing the darkness into this Realm giving him full power here."

"We can check the apartment first, Cody should be there. I hope we're not too late…"

Less than half an hour later Zack and Taschen arrived at the Martin's new apartment complex outside of downtown Boston. Zack was really weak by now, his energy all but drained from having been starved of food, water and light energy for two days and Taschen all but carried him upstairs to the apartment door. The Lord Guardian knocked on the door and waited impatiently as Zack hung on his shoulder. Carey Martin answered the door and gasped in shock as she saw her son in the condition he was in.

"Zack? Oh my baby what happened?" Carey wailed as she came forward to help bear his weight and hold him protectively in her arms. Taschen helped Carey bring Zack over to the couch and set him down as a freshly showered Kurt came out of the bathroom pulling on his shirt.

"He's been imprisoned in the Chaos Realm for two days. He needs some food and water right now," Taschen answered, the urgency in his voice making Kurt spring over to the kitchen and return with a bottle of water and a couple slices of the pizza that had just been delivered thirty minutes ago. Zack ravenously consumed the pizza and downed half the water before pausing to relieve the brain freeze that hit him and gasp for air.

"Cody…where's Cody?" Zack panted, looking around the apartment and then at his parents. Cody wasn't there, not a good sign.

"Cody went to the movies with the girls and um...well he went with you?" Carey finished answering, turning her statement into a confused question. Zack waved his hand in a negative gesture, but couldn't seem to speak so he looked pointedly at Taschen.

"He is your real son," Taschen said, gesturing to Zack, "The Zack with Cody right now is an imposter."

"Cody…not safe…need to go there now," Zack panted just after he finished the bottle of water. He got to his feet, feeling much better than he had before and pulled the light into him letting it fill every inch of his body. With his hunger dulled, thirst quenched and raw power radiating from his body chasing away the feeling of helplessness that had haunted him during his captivity Zack was itching for a fight. He was ready to meet Jarran and beat the crap out of that arrogant son of a bitch.

"I can get us there quick if I drive?" Carey suggested, lines of worry for her younger twin crossing her face. At that suggestion Zack was already heading towards the door hell bent on protecting his brother from the imposter with Taschen and his family right behind him. The Demon Lord's son didn't know it yet, but the White Knight was coming to pay him a very painful visit.

* * *

"Well this sure is a bummer," Cody said in a crestfallen tone as he looked across the street at the movie theater that was sold out of the move everyone really wanted to see. They had all grabbed some ice cream and were presently eating it as they sat on a bus stop bench trying to figure out what to do now. Cody was presently chowing down on a waffle cone while to his right Max was spoon feeding Zack from the bowl of hot fudge sundae that they were sharing. Max was accidentally getting ice cream on his face, this made her giggle and him smile back at her not knowing what she was giggling about but sharing her good mood just the same. She kissed him on the lips, using her tongue to clean up the vanilla on and around them.

"It's nice just to spend some time together," Barbara said, running her hand through Cody's blond hair, "You three are always off saving the world, you never get to have any fun."

"I hope those days are over. I don't like fighting much," Max added, setting the empty bowl on the ground underneath the bench. Zack gave her a puzzled look.

"You don't like to fight?" Zack asked as Max sat back down next to him. Cody watched as Max gave his twin an incredulous look.

"Of course not. I just want to have a normal life you know? Grow up, get a nice job, live in a nice place with a certain special someone and maybe in the distant future have children of my own," Max replied, staring dreamily off into the sky as the sunlight started to fade into late evening ambiance.

"What about you Cody?" Zack questioned him now. It seemed an odd thing to ask, seeing as Cody was the more gentle and sensitive twin. He only fought because he had to, not because he wanted to. He should know that…

"If I never have to fight again it'll be a blessing."

"What about you Zack?" Max asked, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Well…I guess that I…" Zack started to answer before Barbara cut him off mid sentence.

"Isn't that your mom's car Cody?" Glancing in the direction that Barbara was looking, Cody did indeed spot Carey Martin's car pull into the movie theater parking lot across the street. Cody watched as his mother and father got out and started looking around. Two teenagers jumped out of the back seats and both of them looked around for a moment before looking in Cody's direction and running over to him.

One of the teens was dressed in a light blue t-shirt and khaki pants and when Cody looked hard enough at the face framed by electric blue eyes and light brown hair he knew that he was looking at Taschen the Lord Guardian in mortal clothing once again. The other teen with him was wearing a black shirt and jeans that seemed to be too tight for him and when Cody caught sight of his face underneath the thick blond hair her gasped in surprise. It was Zack's face…but that was impossible.

* * *

The distance between the two groups rapidly closed as Zack ran with Taschen towards his brother. Cody had stood up and moved Barbara behind him to shield her almost as if he knew something was bad was about to happen. More interestingly though was the quick back and forth glances by Cody and Max between the real Zachary Martin and the impostor standing amongst them.

"Taschen? What is going on?" Cody asked as he looked back and forth between the two Zacks. Before the Lord Guardian could reply he had to restrain the real Zack from getting any closer to the imposter and pummeling him. Jarran merely glared at Zack, making no move to protect himself or run away.

"Let me go!" Zack shouted in anger, struggling against the immortal's strong grip.

"He has his powers now, it wouldn't be wise to fight him," Taschen argued with him, forcing Zack backwards and placing himself between the real Zack and the fake.

"Who are you?" Cody asked the real Zack, who immediately felt the burning fire to fight Jarran fade as his brother failed to recognize who he was. Zack let his light power swell and with explosive force his white armor edged in gold burst into existence around his body. As his right arm came up to point at Jarran a sliver of white light raced outward from his hand and took the shape of a sword as Fortitude appeared. The tip of the blade came to rest in Jarran's face. The young Demon Lord eyed it with indifference, suggesting that he was far from impressed.

"It's me Cody! Don't you recognize your twin from this imposter?" Zack explained, not taking his eyes off Jarran as he studied him for any sign of movement. Cody gave Zack a hard look before turning to Jarran staring at him as if it was the first time seeing him. Max moved away to stand off to the side with Barbara.

"So that's why…" Cody whispered, seeming to suddenly understand a great deal of things, "Who the fuck are you?"

Cody became surrounded by a golden glow as his own gold and black armor wrapped around him and Excalibur formed at its master's command. Sensing the danger that could erupt at any moment Barbara backed away and joined Carey and Kurt Martin who were wisely backing away from the confrontation. Max transformed next, adding her blue light to the light of the twins as her azure and gold armor appeared along with her sword Aegis. Taschen joined them in his red and gold brilliance even though he wouldn't be able to fight, bringing Intrepid to bear joining its brother swords.

"My name is Jarran Noh'Malkiri. I am the Demon Lord of the Chaos Realm and Ashani's son," Jarran answered Cody. Cody and Max stood there stunned, not only at the revelation of the young man's identity but also at the fact that they had been spending so much time so close to Jarran who could have seriously harmed or killed them at any moment from behind his elaborate disguise.

Cody and Max faltered in their stances as they shared feelings of shock and uncertainty about how to proceed. Zack glanced at his brother to see how he would react. This proved to be a gigantic mistake. In the blink of an eye Jarran kicked Cody in the stomach and sent him flying a short distance backwards. Before Cody crashed into the road Max was sent sprawling onto the sidewalk as Jarran stiff armed his way past her.

Zack moved to intercept the Demon Lord and as Jarran turned to face him, dark smoke briefly covered his body before blowing away to reveal his pitch black armor covering him from neck to toe. Jarran's sword Defiance came up to meet Fortitude and the two sparked as they made contact. Jarran pressed Zack hard with a flurry of attacks that he could barely keep up with before issuing another powerful kick that sent Zack stumbling off balance.

Even as Zack fought to recover, Jarran pounced upon Cody who just barely had enough time to parry a blow aimed at his head with Excalibur. Cody slammed a bolt of light into the ground before him, exploding a chunk of concrete which sprayed at Jarran allowing the Truth Seeker a second to get some distance. This didn't deter Jarran however as he leapt up a few feet into the air and blasted Max with several blasts of negative energy. The reddish pink light slammed into her blue armor, blackening the surface and making her double over in pain as the diminished energy washed through her.

Jarran moved closer to the ground and Cody blasted him with several spheres of light that he nimbly dodged. The spheres kept on moving and with sickening horror Cody watched as they impacted upon an unprepared Zack knocking him facedown just as he was about to charge at Jarran from behind.

Cody cursed at being tricked by the Demon Lord into attacking his own brother. He wasn't worried about injuring Zack, since the light couldn't hurt other Children, but he had slowed down his brother's attack. Jarran fell back momentarily as Cody pressed him hard with Excalibur and summoning all manner of light energy attacks to distract his foe as much as possible. Then Jarran reversed the attacks, turning his parries into devastating attacks that narrowly avoided penetrating Cody's armor. As he sped up faster than the Truth Seeker could keep up with Jarran managed to knock Excalibur from Cody's hand and deliver a devastating roundhouse kick to the chest that sent him sprawling onto his back.

Jarran stood triumphantly over Cody, a dark shadow in the image of his own twin brother, the hilt of Defiance raised above his head in both hands ready to deliver the killing thrust. Cody stared up at him in pure hatred as he struggled to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him.

"Go ahead…kill me," Cody coughed, feeling the pain constricting his chest. To his surprise Jarran remained still as a statue. The sword didn't fall and Cody looked into his evil twin's eyes in puzzlement. Jarran's face was contorted with emotion and his arms began to shake.

"I…I don't want to," Jarran whispered finally after what seemed like hours had passed by. Before Cody's face could register the surprise that he felt at Jarran's admission, a blur of white light crashed into the Demon Lord and together Zack and Jarran rolled away before coming to a stop several feet away.

Defiance had fallen from Jarran's hand next to Cody and he shoved it out of the way as he got up onto all fours. Jarran pounced on Zack weaponless, using one hand to force Fortitude off to the side and the other closed around Zack's throat. Zack countered by trying to pull Jarran's choking hand away from his throat and when that didn't work he used his legs to flip the Demon Lord over and behind him. Jarran lost his grip and Zack rolled to his knees, bringing Fortitude around in a sweeping motion letting the blade come to rest against the young man's exposed throat.

"Say goodbye demon!" Zack hissed in rage, holding back the killing blow only to gain the satisfaction at looking the doomed Demon Lord in the eye. Jarran just stared back at him defiantly, not giving Zack the pleasure of seeing fear on his face or in his eyes.

"Zack don't!" Cody ordered desperately as he picked up Excalibur and pushed himself up on his feet. Zack hesitated and took in a deep aggravated breath.

"Cody…This guy stole my identity, imprisoned me for days and masqueraded as me for god knows why. On top of that he's Ashani's son and I'm not keen on having the Chaos Realm invade us again!" An agitated Zack explained, but he stayed his hand from execution and Fortitude remained pressing against Jarran's flesh.

"He spared my life just now," Cody stated, and then to Jarran he asked, "Why don't you want to kill me?"

"I owed you from the attack at the mall when you saved my life. That…and I've come to consider you a friend Cody Martin…" Jarran answered, his words followed by a thunderous silence as the meaning of them sunk in.

"Friend?" Cody thundered as he circled the young Demon Lord, "You hurt my brother, you tricked me into believing that you were Zack and at any time you could have killed us both to weaken the defenses of Earth in order to invade us again!"

"Why did you fight us now?" Zack hissed before Jarran could respond to Cody's words.

"Because you'll kill me White Knight." Jarran answered somberly as he let his black armor fade away. Now all that could be seen was the real Zack Martin in his brilliant armor kneeling on top of a mirror image of himself wearing Zack's usual skater clothing. Zack had his left knee on Jarran's chest keeping him pinned down while the right knee was holding down his wrist on one side. Jarran's sword hand was pinned by Zack's free hand and Fortitude's incredibly sharp edge was pressed against the Demon Lord's throat just above his Adam's apple. They stared into each other's eyes for a long time in silence, the only sound was their heavy breathing from the sudden exertion of battle.

"So kill me Zack…"

"No. I won't. You spared my brother's life, so I spare yours," Zack finally answered, withdrawing his magical sword and then getting to his feet. Cody eyed Jarran warily as he got back on his feet, worried that he might start fighting again.

"No Zack!" Taschen cried in disbelief at the act of mercy, almost making both twins jump into action thinking that the young Demon Lord was about to try something. Jarran wasn't up to anything though, he merely folded his arms across his chest and addressed the Lord Guardian.

"Respect earned and respect given between warriors. I have no further desire to fight the Children of Light, you have my word."

"The word of a Demon Lord doesn't carry any weight."

"You judge me based off my father's actions Taschen, but I am not him."

"I believe him. If he wanted to hurt me, he could have done so a long time ago," Cody put in, stopping the argument before it started between the two immortals.

"So what were you doing here Jarran?" Zack asked, still skeptical of the young man's motives but giving him the benefit of the doubt based upon Cody's conviction in taking Jarran at his word.

"At first I did mean you harm. I wanted to learn your secrets, find the best ways to kill all the Children of Light and weaken Earth's defenses any way that I could from within so that the Chaos Realm could invade," Jarran started to explain.

"But you've had a change of heart right?" Taschen asked, still not entirely believing him.

"To be honest…everything I knew about your world was from what my father and Pandora taught me. They filled my head with their opinions and prejudices. Living with the Martin family, especially Cody here, opened my eyes to the truth…"

"Which is?"

"The truth of the matter is that your realm and your people aren't that different from my own. I've enjoyed my time here and the people who I spent it with. I think that there's enough room for both of our realms to live in without further conflict."

"That is unheard of between light and dark realms!"

"Perhaps it's time that we stir the pot or throw a wrench in the machine then. Besides Taschen, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We have a bigger problem on our hands." Zack watched as Cody's armor faded away and he returned to his normal clothing. Zack, Taschen and Max followed suit as Barbara, Carey and Kurt came over to join them.

"The sentinels? The disruption in the timeline?" Cody prompted earning him an approving look from Jarran.

"The sentinels are minions of another dark Realm Lord, much like the Chaos Demons are under my command. Father Time, who is the Lord of the Time Realm has made incursions in both of our realms Cody. He has razed the Chaos Realm for days with his armies but myself, the Champions of Chaos and the Demons have so far beaten them back," Jarran explained. Zack noticed Taschen intently listening, his expression telling him that the Lord Guardian was unfamiliar with any 'Time Realm'.

"Champions of Chaos?" Cody wondered aloud as the Demon Lord paused for a moment. Jarran swung his arm to indicate all of the gathered Children of Light.

"Those people who are born with powerful mortal souls. They are born with immortal bodies with the ability to control negative energy and direct the Demons with their thoughts. We…that is…they are your opposite. The Champions will live forever until they are killed, but their soul will never be reborn like your immortal souls will be into a new body when death or old age claims you. The Champions train their whole lives to be the best warriors and defenders of the realm while you inherit the skills and training from hundreds of mortal Children of the Light warriors who came before you."

"So there are people in your realm like us?" Zack asked, intrigued that there could be people on the other side entrusted with similar power and charged with protecting their world. He briefly wondered where they had all been during Ashani's invasion of Earth two years ago. From their brief fight, Zack could tell that Jarran was very tough and had he been at his father's side in the last invasion the twins might have very well lost.

"Yes. I am, or was, a Champion of Chaos. I still am I guess, but when my father died I inherited his Realm Lord powers. I didn't expect to get them. I thought for sure Pandora would get them…"

"Lady Pandora?" Taschen inquired with a note of familiarity before the twins could ask who she was. Jarran simply nodded and then grinned as Taschen said, "Tough bitch."

"Anyway, like I said, we are both under attack by the Time Realm. Once I came to Earth during a lull in the fighting in my own realm, I realized that Father Time was here as well. He is disrupting the timeline. My father never trusted him as he always believed that Time was trying to seize control of the Chaos Realm to make his own realm the most powerful of the dark realms."

"So what do you think he's up to here?" Cody asked, "I mean we've only been attacked by a handful of Time's creatures."

"You forget that he was changing the timeline too when we were at the mall. The only reason we resisted the changes was because I was there. Realm Lords and their Guardians," Jarran gestured at Taschen, "are immune to such changes and due to your proximity to me, you were protected as well."

"Do you mean…do you think it's possible that Time is trying to revert Earth to the other timeline where Ashani defeated us?" Cody wondered, clearly deep in thought as he listened to the young man's explanations.

"Zack told me part of that story. I believe that's possible… If Father Time can take the Earth Realm, he will have enough power and influence over the other Dark Realms to invade the Chaos Realm and claim it as his own. When the second most powerful dark realm takes control of the most powerful light realm, which has beaten back the most powerful dark realm, then others will rally behind Time."

"No honor among thieves," Zack said suddenly feeling very small as he realized just how big the universe was becoming. Years ago he had just been self absorbed in his own little life…and then he had been fighting to defend his entire world from invading armies, then he was more recently trapped in the realm that had invaded his own and now they were under threat from yet another world.

"Something like that." Jarran nodded in approval of the metaphor, "The best thing to do now is to find Time, whichever Realm he is hiding in, and take him out. I've already defeated The Overlord in the Chaos Realm, his most powerful Champion of Time, but Father Time will be tough. I doubt though that he could handle a combined assault of light and dark Champions fighting alongside their respective Guardian and Lord."

"You want us to help you?" Taschen asked flatly.

"Your world is in danger just like my own. The difference is that we have more Champions than you do, a standing army of Demons and a united people who will fight to the bitter end. I would be helping you," Jarran said with finality. There was a moment of silence as everyone gave the matter some deep thought. Zack hadn't seen any of what Jarran was talking about besides the one machine that had attacked him days ago, but if Cody believed him based on whatever had happened to them over the last two days then Zack was willing to lend his help despite having been temporarily imprisoned and violated by the new Demon Lord stealing his image. It was Zack who finally broke the silence.

"A new Demon Lord, a new threat and new Children of the Light. Maybe it's time for a new beginning between Earth and Chaos. I'd rather stand with an old enemy that I know and respect than stand alone against the darkness." Zack extended his hand and after a surprised pause, Jarran returned the gesture with a firm handshake.

"Thank you Zachary and…I'm sorry for what I did to you," Jarran apologized looking ashamed.

"Water under the bridge man." Cody came forward and added his hand on top of Jarran and Zack's handshake. Max came over and added her support, receiving an apologetic look from Jarran for having blasted her in the chest earlier. Finally after a moment's hesitation Taschen also came forward.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Taschen muttered to him. Zack gave him a fiendish smile, one that he hadn't flashed in years since his days of troublemaking at the Tipton.

"I don't. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants." Taschen just gaped at him. Then…as the unlikely alliance broke apart, everything around them began to change.

Buildings in the distance collapsed, the millions of lights in the city went dark, the orange glow of fires raging out of control lit the faces of nearby buildings which had been gutted by destructive forces. A wave of destruction was washing towards them, destroying everything in its path. People caught by it simply vanished, the nearby park turned from a luscious green haven to a barren blackened spot of land.

"What the hell?" …Zack

"Oh my god…" …Max

"It's happening!" …Cody

"Get behind me!" Taschen and Jarran shouted at the same time, making the Children, Barbara and the adult Martins spring into action. Two barriers of neon green light encompassed all of them in a small bubble as the destruction raced towards them from downtown, spreading out in all directions. Everything around them changed into a hellish landscape in the wake of a massive explosion that washed over them. The force of the blast pushed Jarran and Taschen backwards and the twins steadied them as they maintained the protective field that kept the changes in the timeline from affecting them.

As everything settled down, the green barrier faded. The world as they had known it was gone. It was just like Future Cody had described it. Desolate and utterly destroyed, not a soul in sight. The only sound came from a roaring inferno nearby. Carey, Kurt and Barbara each broke down into varying levels of shock.

Smoke rolled out from a nearby intersection onto the main road that ran between where the movie theater had been and where they now stood. The space in front of the smoke wavered almost as if there was heat rising from the road on a hot day. An elderly man who still looked remarkably fit for his age emerged. He was wearing armor that was the same style as Jarran's only his was primarily a dark blood red color edged in black. His face was only moderately wrinkled and he kept his silvery white hair cut short and neatly trimmed just like the goatee on his face. Father Time…Zack had no doubt about who this was.

"How touching, the Children of Light have survived. Welcome to your new world. I have returned it to how it should have been if not for the interference of a time traveling Child," Time introduced is his strong and booming voice. Zack was strangely reminded of that television announcer who narrated the previews for the major blockbusters coming to the big screen.

"Oh how you should have seen the look on Zack and Cody Martin's faces when I killed them before they could ever become a threat," Father Time continued as he came to a stop just a few feet away from them. He waved his hand and a ghostly image appeared of the twins at sixteen years old walking home from the bus stop after school chatting about every day stuff when a big man stepped out in front of them. He was much taller than the twins and heavily built. The man was also wearing the same blood red and black armor that Time did. Zack had a funny feeling that this was the Overlord Jarran had spoke of, this huge ugly frightening man certainly fit the bill.

Zack watched in horror as Overlord backed the two boys against the wall of a nearby store and simply slammed both of his fists into their chests. It was a gruesome sight and he wanted to turn away, but he felt entrapped by the sight of it. Overlord's fists went right through the helpless twins into their chests and their bodies went limp before pain could ever replace the look of shock on their innocent faces. Blood was everywhere…

"And then there was Ashani…" The ghostly image changed to show the swirling vortex just down the road from the Tipton Hotel where the Chaos Realm breached into the Earth Realm for the invasion two years ago. Ashani emerged from the portal at the head of a small army of Demons. The previous Demon Lord gaped in surprise as Father Time's army surrounded him and pounced upon the Demons. The sheer number of Golems and Sentinels overwhelmed the small contingent of Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Wraiths and Shadow Creatures that Ashani had brought with him. Ashani waved his hand and closed the vortex behind him, denying Time access to his realm realizing how outnumbered he was. The Overlord and two other Champions of Time moved like a blur and restrained Ashani as he made to fight them. Father Time rocketed forward and ran his intricately made spear through the Demon Lord's armor, shattering the protective plates with the force of the blow. His spear and hand continued going forward into Ashani's chest as the Demon Lord met the same fate as the twins had.

"But why kill them…when I can bend them to my will?" Time mused as he images faded, leaving the Children of Light horrified at Zack and Cody's deaths and Jarran displaying pure hatred over seeing the death of his father. There was movement to the left of the gathered group. Zack glanced over and saw Overlord emerge from the ruins around them.

"Not possible!" Jarran breathed in surprise, "I killed you!"

"Really?" Overlord taunted him, drawing his weapon. Movement from the right of the group made them collectively turn their heads as two Champions of Time walked towards them. They were shorter than Father Time and Overlord, and more compactly built, but no less dangerous Zack sensed. Who were these guys? Then Zack realized why they looked so familiar. Everything about them was the same, from the shaggy blond hair, freckles and birth marks on their faces. The only exception was that their eyes were a lively shade of red instead of blue-green.

Wearing the blood red and black armor of the Time Realm was none other than Zack and Cody. They both grinned evilly as recognition dawned on the real Zack's features and together they drew their weapons as well.

"Overlord forced their souls to pass on, but he didn't completely kill their bodies. I granted them to my loyal servants Veritas and Tempus who have been so long without bodies," Time explained, gesturing in turn to the red clad Zack and Cody as he spoke their new names.

"The souls of traitors," Taschen hissed, glaring at the two of them.

"Good to see you too Taschen!" The evil Zack, Veritas, greeted sarcastically in a completely un-Zack like voice. The evil Cody, Tempus, nodded in agreement.

Movement directly behind them signaled that Time had them completely surrounded. They all turned to look behind them as a black clad Ashani stepped out of the shadows and addressed the twins.

"Hello gentlemen. Miss me?"

* * *

**A/N:** I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! The wait was well worth it huh? This chapter is even bigger than chapter five, at seven thousand words! I'm going to try and avoid any more monster chapters like these, since they take so long to put out and are a real pain in the arse to write. I like keeping them around the 2500-3000 word limit.

**_Please review! It gives me the inspiration, motivation and confidence to continue writing this story! =)_**

Jarran has been called out and he battles the twins briefly before unexpectedly making an alliance with them. Father Time alone shouldn't be able to stand against their combined power, but now Father Time is not alone any longer. He has somehow resurrected The Overlord, infused the soulless and dying bodies of Zack and Cody from the future timeline with the souls of the traitors (as Taschen calls them) Veritas and Tempus and worst of all Ashani. Nothing is the same any more. Earth's history has been rewritten with only those under the protection of Jarran and Taschen immune to the changes in the time line.

Do Zack, Cody, Max, Taschen and Jarran stand a chance of surviving with Father Time, Ashani, Veritas, Tempus and Overlord arrayed against them and the Earth Realm now destroyed while the Chaos Realm remains under siege by Time's army with only Pandora and a handful of Champions of Chaos holding them at bay?

Thanks for reading, now stand by for **Chapter 9: "Retreat"**

**Coming Soon to a FanFiction site near you!  
**


	11. Retreat

**Chapter 9**

**"Retreat"**

_  
I remembered black skies  
The lightning all around me  
I remembered each flash  
As time began to blur  
Like a startling sign  
That fate had finally found me_

_"New Divide" by Linkin Park_

"Hello Gentlemen. Miss me?" Ashani's voice made Zack's chest constrict in terror. It was getting harder for him to breathe as his eyes took in the black clad nightmare standing in front of him. The old Demon Lord looked exactly as he had two years ago, the same short black hair gelled back in a professional appearance and the cold silver eyes boring into his soul. It struck Zack odd how different father and son looked, remembering the brief glimpse he'd had of Jarran's white blond hair and green eyes before he took on Zack's image. He must have inherited a lot from his mother, whoever she was.

"But they killed you!" Cody stammered, wholly unsettled by the appearance of the man who had almost destroyed everything they cared about and came within inches of killing the twins.

"You mean your future counterparts? Maybe they did once, but you see Time converted them into Champions of his own. Everything you know never happened. Welcome to your new world!" Ashani cackled maniacally.

"Enough talk! The Children of Light die now." Father Time thundered as chaos ensued. Zack wasn't even able to take in what happened next as he had to defend himself in an instant, catching his evil twin Veritas and keeping the sword in his hand from splitting Zack's head open like a watermelon. The deadly weapon thankfully wasn't Fortitude, since the magical blade was tied to the soul of the White Knight and not his body. Zack felt his white armor wrap around his body as he grappled with Veritas, matching him move for move, realizing that his evil twin was equally as strong as him.

He fell straight down as Veritas kicked his legs out from under him, but Zack kept his grip firm instead of letting go in surprise and pulled the Time Champion down on top of him. Zack kicked his leg out and used the leverage to roll over on top of Veritas using the same move that Jarran had used on him earlier. Even as he was being choked, Veritas managed to push Zack off of him with one hand pressed firmly against the White Knight's breastplate. Both of them jumped to their feet and started circling one another mere inches apart.

"You're worn out, you have no hope of beating me," Veritas hissed in Zack's voice, but it sounded slightly off like there was another voice blended in with it, "Surrender now and pledge loyalty to Father Time and he may let you live."

"Fuck you!"

"That's a really perverted kind of incest Zachary. I am you after all." Zack glared at him for a moment and then sprang into action, swinging his arms forward as Fortitude flashed into existence between both gauntlet encased hands. Veritas hadn't expected that and tried to hastily block the crushing blow aimed at his head. Fortitude sailed through the Time Champion's sword like a hot knife through butter and kept on traveling with its remaining momentum as Veritas tried to dodge out of the way.

The powerful magic sword bit into Veritas's shoulder pauldron and tore the entire plate away as the edge of the razor sharp blade scraped against the bare flesh underneath drawing bright red blood. He pulled away and used his left arm to summon negative energy into the palm of his hand and blast wave after wave of reddish pink light crashing into the White Knight. Zack whipped his shield in front of him and reinforced it with his aura, absorbing the force of the impacts.

"If you really were me, Fortitude would not have hurt you!" Zack taunted, trying to make his wounded and weaponless opponent angry enough to make a stupid move that he could take advantage of. A cold fire burned within Zack, he would not allow this evil to spread again. There had to be a way of returning the world back to the way that it was and he sensed that the only way to put things right was by going through these clowns.

"You may have injured me Zachary, but we are doing far more damage to your collection of rabble," Veritas shot back, a cruel smile touching his fiery red eyes. Zack took a second to glance over at his companions and realized the hopelessness of their situation.

* * *

Cody pulled his golden armor around him the moment he saw Veritas crash into his brother and prepared himself as he turned to counter Tempus, Excalibur deflecting a flurry of attacks in the first few seconds of the engagement. The Truth Seeker juked to the left, surprising his opponent who hadn't expected that and blasted him with a lance of golden light. Tempus dodged out of the way, hopped up into the air and sent spheres of negative energy screaming down towards him. Cody returned fire, intercepting each blast, and sent back even more lances of gold light making Tempus fall back to the ground to avoid them.

He slammed Excalibur into the ground and channeled his light energy into it. The ground exploded in a straight line heaving chunks of asphalt and earth everywhere as the sound of the massive explosion momentarily deafened him. Tempus was thrown backwards by the blast and debris rained down upon him in an attempt to bury him. Taking a moment, Cody glanced around at the chaos surrounding him. He became filled with hope as he saw his brother's sword crash into Veritas's shoulder, shredding the blood red armor, and Taschen valiantly clashing with the much more powerful Father Time keeping the Time Lord away from the twins. Then his heart fell as he looked in the other direction.

Overlord was limping, his right thigh was bleeding profusely from a deep stab wound, and his armor was scorched from several impacts of light energy but he now stood victorious over the Child that he had been battling. Max lie on the ground nearby, coughing between moans of pain. Her armor was dented and blackened as well, giving evidence that she had given Overlord as good as she got. Then, just beyond her fallen form Ashani and Jarran faced each other unmoving. What would their newfound ally do now with his father back from the dead?

Pain washed over Cody as a powerful lance of negative energy slammed into his side. He turned into the attack and brought his shield up to deflect the sword thrust aimed at him, but it was too late. Tempus's blade stabbed through Cody's weakened torso armor and into his side. He saw spots appear across his vision as the blade ripped open skin, separated muscle, nicked his rib bones and came out his back. Cody looked down as he fell backwards, the blade sliding back out of him, his armored hands trying to cover the wound. Excalibur clattered nosily on the ground seconds before he came crashing down next to it.

Blood was everywhere…

* * *

Jarran's heart pounded in his chest, sweat covered every inch of his flesh and he was momentarily paralyzed by the sight of his father before him. They had never really been close, it was Pandora who had largely raised and educated him since Ashani was always busy running the realm and planning his next move. Then of course as an immortal his father believed him too young to be of much usefulness. Jarran had often wondered why after millennia of being childless his father had finally mated with a woman in order to produce a male heir. Why an immortal lord needed an heir after all this time remained a mystery, but it was only in the final year before his death did Ashani ever make an attempt to get to know him.

Now as the White Knight and Truth Seeker battled their evil twins, Taschen desperately fended off Father Time and Max took on the Overlord, Ashani and Jarran stood only a few feet apart from each other unmoving. Ashani's eyes tracked back and forth as the battle raged around them, none of it as interesting as his son. Jarran could tell that Ashani didn't recognize him since he was still disguised as Zack, but he knew that his father could feel something…

"A being of a dark realm standing at peace among a rabble collection of light realm Champions...Interesting…" Ashani finally said, resting his gaze upon him. Jarran wasn't sure what to do, he wished he could have a few minutes to think it over. The timeline had changed here on Earth, shifting the balance of power in Father Time's favor.

"Who do you serve?" Jarran finally asked on a sudden inspiration. Ashani approached him and halted mere inches away. He reached out, the gauntlet around his right hand vanished exposing his bare hand, and touched Jarran's face. He felt an icy chill race down his spine from his father's touch.

"You wear a disguise from The Fountain of Deception. You are one of my Champions." Ashani stated, removing his hand and giving his son a hard piercing look.

"Who do you serve!?" Jarran demanded louder this time, surprised at his sudden lack of fear and the confidence brimming inside of him. The feeling was one that most teenage males felt when confronted with an opponent that simply said, 'I can take him'.

"Father Time." Then Jarran knew it, his father was lost to him. Hundreds of emotions coursed through him, sadness, anger, disbelief, horror and the feeling of being betrayed strongest among them. He decided his allegiance in a heartbeat. Jarran would honor his pledge to the Children of Light to help them stop Father Time.

"You serve the people of the Chaos Realm, no one else!" Jarran roared in his most authoritative tone, which was a little hard in Zack's voice which was built for a hero's words, and instantly summoned his armor and Defiance.

"Fool, the Chaos Realm belongs to Father Time!" Ashani said, stepping back and drawing Dominance, the obsidian black blade covered with the dried blood of countless victims. He apparently had failed to recognize Jarran's weapon, but he was about to learn who it was that stood before him.

"The Chaos Realm belongs to itself!" Summoning every last ounce of darkness and tapping into the flow of negative energy, Jarran powered himself up to his maximum strength as well as infusing himself with his Realm Lord powers proving to himself that the timeline changes only applied to the Earth Realm. The evening light faded as darkness shrouded Jarran, arcs of reddish pink energy flickered in sympathy to the smoke swirling around him. The temperature dropped dramatically and all other sounds vanished.

"What…? Who are you?" Ashani stuttered in surprise as he himself grew in power equally.

"I am the true Demon Lord!" Jarran exclaimed, whipping Defiance around and catching his father unprepared. Ashani barely had time to deflect the attack which still managed to bite into his armor. Weapons of darkness could hurt others who were also of dark realms, unlike the light weapons which would not hurt other light persons.

He rapidly moved away, expecting his father to prepare for another attack which never came. Jarran could feel that Ashani had his Realm Lord powers as well, which didn't seem possible. He was deeply worried by this as he was only one Realm Lord against two plus their Champions seeing that all of Time's men were still standing, albeit all of them heavily wounded, but only the White Knight and Lord Guardian still in any condition to fight and even they were worn out.

Jarran intervened with perfect timing as Father Time knocked Taschen mercilessly into the hard unforgiving ground and sent the old man flying backwards into the rubble of a nearby collapsed building. There wasn't a moment to lose as he felt the presence of his father closing on him. He became a blur, letting his instincts drive his body towards the goal he had set. They had to retreat now or lose everything.

"With me Zack!" Jarran cried aloud, flicking Defiance at Veritas and catching the Time Champion with the flat edge of his blade which knocked him over. Zack fell in behind him, seeming to understand what he was doing, and picked up Cody in his arms as Jarran kicked Tempus out of the way. Max came next, draped over the young Demon Lord's shoulder as he changed direction towards where he last saw the Lord Guardian. Taschen picked himself up, saw what was happening and started running with them.

"What are we doing?" Zack asked.

"Retreating," Jarran answered simply, angling their escape route towards the ruins of the old Tipton hotel.

"There isn't any safe place!"

"There is one place…" They came to the towering fence surrounding the ruins of downtown, only Zack was surprised that it was still intact. In fact it looked as if nothing had affected the small radius of the city where the battle had raged two years ago. The entire area's existence in time was so heavily damaged from Future Cody's time travel that it hadn't been affected by Time's manipulation of the time line. Jarran had only followed a hunch leading his new allies here and was relieved that it came out in his favor. There was still a chance to save Earth with this place anchoring the entire world in the original time line that had been modified not even an hour ago. Without even using his hands, Jarran manipulated negative energy with his mind to blast a path through the fence for them.

"Taschen! Drop the defenses here!" Jarran called out, letting Zack take the lead towards the Tipton and followed him as he let his concentration wander to his Realm Lord powers. Taschen hesitated only for a moment before dropping the barriers, glancing at the young Demon Lord as if to tell him 'You better not betray us'. The ruined Tipton hotel appeared as they rounded a corner onto a main road, its massive blackened hulk rising into the air proudly before looking like a mess with its uppermost floors exposed.

Jarran willed the negative energy around him to gather and coalesce in front of the retreating group. The massive quantity of energy suddenly manifested into existence, bursting into brilliant red and purple light swirling around a black vortex that appeared to be endless. It seemed to suck in everything, including the waning daylight. A wave of overpressure washed over them, almost knocking them off balance as the connection between realms was made. Zack with Cody in his arms hesitated before the gateway, Taschen stopping beside him. They both looked mortified at the very thought of going inside.

"There is no other way!" Jarran exclaimed, crossing the threshold into the vortex and feeling it pull him in with surprising speed and gentleness. Darkness pressed in upon him and he knew nothing for a long while. He didn't know if his new allies were following him through. He didn't know if Time and his minions would dive in after them before he could close the gateway. He didn't know if Ashani could reopen the gateway, whether or not Taschen restored Earth's defenses should he follow Jarran.

His blood boiled at these distressing thoughts and then with a sudden abruptness Jarran emerged into the Chaos Realm, Zack, Cody and Taschen arriving seconds later. He felt the Earth's defenses go back up on the other side of the gateway and it fluctuated, stuttering and growing smaller as it fought to remain open. Jarran dismissed the gateway with barely any effort, sealing them all inside the Chaos Realm.

* * *

**A/N:** Wow, what a chapter huh? Ashani is alive, working with Father Time and somehow in possession of Realm Lord powers just like Jarran who seems ill at ease to directly fight his father. Zack takes on his evil duplicate Veritas and even in his exhausted state manages to fend him off thanks to Fortitude's advantage as a magical sword. Cody faces off against his duplicate Tempus and soundly beats him down, but is severely wounded when he lets his concern for the others distract him. Max has crippled Overlord, not surprising seeing as how easily Jarran had previously handled him, but it took everything she had and more. Taschen bravely fights Father Time, but he gets thrown around like a rag doll for the most part, only his millennia of experience seeing him through the fight alive.

The odds are long, but with some rest and a new battle plan, the new alliance might just pull off a victory. What will happen now that Earth is nearly lost? Will Jarran really keep his word to the Children of the Light? Will Cody survive the day? This and more in **Chapter 10: The Calm Before The Storm**

Please review =)


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